Shut up. Trust God. Take Balloons.

Leonard died a few nights ago.  He was in his early sixties, a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair since an accident in his early twenties.  He lived with his mother who cared for him the last forty years in the house next door to us.  After suffering a major heart attack, Leonard was brought home with hospice care after a week in the hospital.  He passed away about a week later.

When we found out Leonard had died my seven year old son Nick said, “Mom, why are you crying?  Leonard got out of his wheelchair!”

Oh, yeah.  You’re right.

The day of the funeral Nick and I went to the grocery store and bought some food for the family.

Nick looked over the toy aisle and decided he’d spend some of his money on balloons.

Our neighbors didn’t get back home from the funeral until after dark.  When their cars arrived, Nick shouted, “They’re home!!”  I started getting the food together, and he said, “Where are my balloons?”

“You don’t need your balloons.  We need to take the food over.”

“Mom, I need the balloons.  I’m going to take them a balloon.”  Off he ran to find them.

I stood in the kitchen stunned.  Uh oh, doesn’t he know you don’t take a balloon to a grieving family?  We might as well take party hats, noisemakers, and a karaoke machine!  I was trying to decide how to tell him, “Son, balloons have no place at a funeral. We don’t want to insult them.”  But I also felt a strong voice that translated to, “Shut up, Carol, wouldja just this once?”

Nick came back in the kitchen with an inflated blue balloon and said, “I’m going to write them a note.  Where’s the paper?”

I hesitantly pointed to the nearby paper.  He wrote a note, “I am verry verry verry verry sorry about what happened.  Love, Nick.”  He drew hearts all over the paper.  Then he taped the paper to the balloon.  “Okay, Mom, I’m ready!”

At this point I realized there’s no way I’m going to tell him to leave his gift at home, and I’m ashamed to admit I was still concerned about how the balloon would be received.  But I decided to trust the “Shut up, Carol,” and off we went across the yard to the neighbor’s home.

Nick ran over ahead of me and was already well inside the house when I arrived.  As I walked in the door, I heard our eighty-five year old neighbor saying to her other sons with a lilt in her voice, “Look what Nick brought us!”  As I walked in the kitchen she was holding the balloon, reading the note, hugging Nick, and then passing the note and the balloon around.  Then each person was hugging Nick, and he was beaming in a way I hadn’t seen before.

The kid knew.  Somehow he knew.

And because of him, now I know, too.

Shut up.
Trust God.
Take balloons.

When Field Trips Go Bad, or It’s all fun and games until someone sacrifices a lamb.

Last week my son’s second grade class at his Christian school went on a field trip.  “Messiah’s Mansion” was in town for a limited engagement, and it was set up near the parking lot of the Chattanooga Zoo.  Teachers from my son’s school arranged a full day field trip with a tour of Messiah’s Mansion in the morning, and an excursion through the zoo in the afternoon.

What could be more pleasant?  A beautiful autumn day outdoors, learn something about God in the morning, eat a picnic lunch, get some walking exercise and look at animals in the afternoon.  Awesome!

I had no idea what “Messiah’s Mansion” was.  With “Messiah” in the name I assumed it was “something about Jesus,” but “Mansion” smacked of material wealth and opulence.  The Christian Messiah lounging around the pool at the Biltmore Estate sipping wine and reviewing stock quotes?  I’m just not seeing it.

A friend said the phrase “Messiah’s Mansion” sounded like something out of a horror movie.  Oh, c’mon.  It’s the Bible.  How scary could it be?

If life had a soundtrack, this is where the foreshadowing music would play.  Loudly.

Our Messiah’s Mansion tour guide was Nancy, a very sweet and personable young woman who clearly enjoyed and was inspired by what she was doing.  I know she must have enjoyed what she was doing because she smiled a lot.  Okay, she smiled all the time.  All. The. Time.

At educational station number one, Smiling Nancy talked with the kids about the various examples of sanctuaries in the Bible.  We were about to see a built-to-scale replica of the traveling sanctuary Moses and the Israelites took with him on their journeys.  The kids raised their hands and answered Smiling Nancy’s questions.  All the answers seemed to be “God!” or “Jesus!” or “Heaven!”  If a child answered something like, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!”, Nancy would smile and say, “Oh, that’s a very good guess!  But it’s not quite that!  Does anyone else have a guess?”

Educational station number two was inside the sanctuary replica’s courtyard.  Smiling Nancy pointed out the altar of sacrifice, told more stories, and asked more questions to which the kids answered, “God!” or “Jesus!” or “Heaven!”  I was preoccupied with threatening the child sitting next to me who was picking up rocks between his shoes and trying to pelt the bottom of the kid sitting in front of him.  Nancy was in the background saying something about the daily sanctuary service and the courtyard and the altar of sacrifice and sin and something about 9 am and 3 pm.

I refocused on Nancy who was, I think, giving examples of sin to the kids.  To me Nancy looked as if her closest brush with sin was that one time in third grade when she was mad at her parents and lied about whether or not she had practiced her piano.  I guess that says more about me than it does about her, but quit trying to analyze me, alright?

Nancy mentions disobeying God, and disobeying parents, and lying.  I’m really hoping she doesn’t start naming sins and asking for a show of hands, because in front of the kids I just might have to lie which would put me in the ultimate spiritual Catch-22.

Nancy starts explaining sacrifice as atonement for sins, and then Nancy did what kids seem to love and what adults seem to dread:  she asked for a volunteer.  A volunteer for a sacrifice?  Huh?  I thought about holding up the hand of the child sitting next to me.

But Nancy had drawn a bead on Chuck, a father of one of the children who had come with his wife Clarissa as a chaperone, and the only adult male in the group.  Turns out, in Moses’ day, the male head of the household was the one who came to the altar for a sacrifice if anyone in his family had sinned.  Chuck’s in Luck!

Chuck, come on down!  You are the next contestant on The Sacrifice is Right!

Chuck stands with Nancy at the altar while Nancy smiles and talks in a sweet hypnotic voice about the ceremony of sacrifice.  Chuck seemed at ease.  You know, it’s funny how someone can be so relaxed in front of a group right up until the time “sacrifice a lamb” is mentioned and they are handed a sword.

I think Chuck suddenly tensed up.  I know I did.  I bet Chuck was at this very moment kicking himself for turning down the 9 am tee time earlier in the day.

I cut my eyes over to Clarissa who also happened to be looking back at me.  One part incredulity, one part horror, and one part sheer and utter amusement because hey, it’s Chuck at the altar holding a sword.

I remembered we were near the zoo, and so help me, if they paraded a zoo animal in here, I was so calling PETA on their asses.  Clarissa was now busy standing up taking pictures of her sword-bearing husband and of Nancy, still smiling, who magically produced a big soft stuffed white fluffy lamb which looked to me like a Webkinz on steroids.

She handed the lamb to Chuck, clearly realizing now he’d been cast in a really, really bad play.  We’re in the middle of act one, and there was no understudy.  The lamb had lots of fluffy white fur, big eyes, and a stitched-on peaceful smile.  It’s so hard to know what to do when you are holding a sword and someone suddenly gives you a lamb.  Chuck started petting the lamb.  The lamb and Nancy continued to smile.  The lamb didn’t seem to know what was coming.  Nancy knew, but wasn’t letting on that smiling wasn’t appropriate.  Clarissa was smiling because, hey, it’s Chuck at the altar holding a sword and petting a big fluffy stuffed lamb.  I was afraid to look to see if any of the kids were smiling.

Nancy explained again the relation of sin to sacrifice… basically how God expected the lamb to bite it since little Levi lied to his mom last night about cleaning his tent.  As Nancy tried to impress upon the children the significance of sacrifice (as if seeing a large fluffy Webkinz about to be sliced open by a guy with a sword wasn’t sufficient to drive the point home), she mentioned about how the lambs were loved in the family so this was like killing a pet.

At this point I started to pray for a swarm of locusts to head our way and disrupt the play.  Only in my head it came out, “God!  Jesus!  Heaven!  Holy Shit!”  I guess God probably knew what I meant.

Nancy took back the lamb and laid it on the altar.  Those kids in the front row were certainly in for a treat.  I wondered what Nancy would do if one of the kids started crying or screaming.  Then I wondered what Nancy would do if I started.

I wondered how far we could carry this little drama.  Since Chuck was supposed to represent the head of the household, and we were supposed to all represent his family, and the lamb was supposed to represent the sacrifice for atonement of sin, then it logically followed that someone sitting in that courtyard at that very moment was responsible for that soft furry lamb’s impending death.  Maybe we should make this point more clearly.  I thought about standing up and yelling dramatically, “Okay, who caused this?  Who sinned?  Billy, was it you?  Did you sin?  Johnny, you were throwing rocks with your shoes, I bet it was you!  Now Fluffy is going to die because of your behavior!  Shame on you.  Shame on all of you!”

I wondered if Nancy would stop smiling, or if she would say, “Oh, that’s a very good guess!  But it’s not quite that!”

I remained quiet.  You know, for the kids.

The play continued.  Apparently while I was thinking about… other things… Nancy had instructed Chuck in the proper manner to slaughter a sacrificial lamb.  Chuck was a natural.  He dutifully pretended to slice open the lamb, and with Smiling Nancy’s help, they pretended to drain the blood.  Then there was something about digging out the fat, but I didn’t catch it because at this point I was preoccupied with calculating how much money the local child therapists were going to be making in the coming weeks.

The kid sitting next to me started throwing rocks with his shoes again.  This time I didn’t stop him.  I wanted to throw rocks with my shoes, too.

Chuck put the sword down and was sent back to his seat.  Nancy made her final points, but I have no idea what they were.

Shortly after this demonstration, we moved on to educational station three (called The Holy Place) to learn about forgiveness, and then on to educational station four (called The Most Holy Place).  I always kind of skipped over these parts of the Bible, and now I was regretting it.  What the hell is coming next?  If I had read my Bible in detail, I might be able to know if about now I should create a diversion, grab a few kids, shimmy on our bellies under the tent, and run for our lives.

Fortunately, there were apparently no additional calls from God for sacrifice of children (well, other than that little Abraham-Isaac thing), mass graves, or waterboarding.

God resided in educational station four, The Most Holy Place, which is the place without sin.  But I’ve gotta tell you, once you’ve seen at station two a giant Webkinz lamb sliced open and drained of blood, seeing at station four the Ten Commandments etched on styrofoam tablets sitting under a seat surrounded by papier mache angels spray painted gold is, sadly, a bit anticlimactic.

Then at the end of The Most Holy Place demonstration, Smiling Nancy asked all the adults to fill out feedback forms.  Feedback?!?  Oh. Kay.

I sat with my form for a while before I could make a sentence.  I considered writing, “Next time use ketchup on the lamb during the play, because that slaughter part would be way cooler if there were blood.  And consider bleating lamb sound effects to enhance the experience.”

Instead I wrote something like, “Very detailed.”

As we walked toward our picnic place I leaned over to Chuck, called him a lamb killer, and suggested he stay away from the petting zoo.  He said, “Yeah, that was different, wasn’t it?”

“Different” didn’t even begin to describe it.

During the afternoon at the zoo, I wondered what Clarissa would do with those pictures.

I wondered if those zoo animals had any idea what was going on inside the walls of those tents near the parking lot.

I wondered why I saw no sheep at the zoo.

On the drive back to school I tried to decide if my son understood the message, “Every time you lie to Mommy, a kitten dies.”  And for a minute I thought, “Hey, I just might be okay with that message!”

Then I decided I’d better ask the boys a general question about the morning’s “very detailed” scripture education.

“How did you all like the Messiah’s Mansion thing?”

In unison two seven year old voices rang out, “Boooorrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnggggg.”

Thank You, God.  Seriously.  Thanks.

Deliverance

I am an evangelical Christian.

I am an Independent voter.

I am afraid.

Big News Flash: Ugly things go on in politics. Political spin (code for “sanctioned lying by omission”) abounds, and manipulation rules the day. A few years ago a friend of mine was running for a United States Congressional seat, and I was brought in at the last minute as an organizer to try to help him get the people-part of the organization functional again. I knew nothing about campaign strategy, and boy, did I ever see first-hand about ugliness that can go on behind the scenes in a political campaign. I personally have no stomach for it.

In my few short months in that organizer role, I learned these two important things basic to any campaign:

First, the candidate needs “handlers,” people whose job is in part to help the candidate prepare for and navigate through each day’s schedule. The handlers play most crucial roles in a campaign because the candidate must trust that their judgment on how to deal with situations is sound.

Second, even though there are handlers, the candidate is ultimately responsible on a day to day basis for setting the tone of the campaign.

There were times in my short stint in the campaign where a reasonable, yet manipulative, strategy idea would come up during brainstorming meetings, the idea would be presented to the candidate, and the candidate would say something like, “No, we’re not doing that. I couldn’t sleep at night if we did that.” Someone might say, “All is fair in politics,” to which the candidate would say, “But it’s just plain wrong.” He required us, rightly so, to become familiar with his own moral compass, and use that as the ultimate guide in campaign decisions.

Now let’s turn our attention to the McCain / Palin ticket, and why I am so confused and appalled at the direction the Republican campaign is taking.

Video after video on YouTube shows interviews with some McCain/Palin supporters outside rallies where many of them are calling Obama a “terrorist” or a “one man terror cell.” Palin says in speeches that Obama is “palling around with terrorists,” and the angry mob erupts in boos, hisses, and shouted threats of “Traitor!” or “Kill him!”. This scenario is repeated at rally after rally.

Perhaps I’m a dense evangelical Christian, but is this really what God wants? Not to be cliche, but is this really what Jesus would do? Seriously? Aren’t we known as Christians not only by our words, but even moreso by our acts? Aren’t extremist Muslims in Mosul at this very minute threatening to kill Christians? And these Palin-driven Republican rallies are different… how?

Bringing up Bill Ayers is fair enough in politics, though saying that “Obama is palling around with terrorists!” is tantamount to finding a picture of McCain shaking hands with former Florida Republican representative Mark Foley and saying, “McCain is palling around with pedophiles!”

It crosses the moral line. It’s just plain wrong.

Dear Lord, deliver me from some of the Christians, because they are scaring me to death.

Can This Relationship Be Saved?

If you are following my extraordinarily infrequent posts, you know I am learning to cook… extraordinarily infrequently. And in Carol-Land, “learning to cook” means “cooking something in which no ingredient starts with the word ‘Stouffers.’ “

My friend Kelly, in a moment of either sheer grandiosity, debilitating guilt, or fear of public embarrassment should she say ‘no’ (I know all the ex-boyfriend stories, and I’m not afraid to use them)… agreed to impart her culinary wisdom in doses my system could tolerate without having negative side effects.

Or so I thought.

My first step into the world of non-Stouffer’s cuisine was Potato and Leek Soup, chosen because I bought five pounds of potatoes on sale and realized I had just over four pounds more than any one human needed. Kelly was astonished I had four pounds of potatoes, as if no one who knows what they are doing would buy the five pound bag of potatoes! C’mon! They were on sale!

(Yes, I made the soup and took pictures of the whole sordid process. I’ll post about it once I find the cable that allows me to get the pictures out of the camera).

As part of her mentoring Kelly has been telling me I need to go to the farmer’s market. She proclaims, “Everything is more satisfying when it’s fresh and local!”, which for some reason sounds vaguely sexual to me. The fact that I have food and sex paired up in my head probably explains a lot about my current dress size, but moving on, keep walking, nothing to see here…

So today I go to the local farmer’s market. Toward closing time the Guys-Who-Sell-Sweet-Red-Peppers indicate they want to get rid of their inventory. I pull out my last four dollars and ask how many I can get for four bucks. One guy hands me a plastic bag and says, “As many as you can get in there.”

So I’m here to tell you, forty-three peppers are as many as you can get in there and still close the bag. I was quite proud of myself.

I took the peppers home and immediately called my mentor:

Carol: I need to freeze some peppers. After I slice them, what quantity should I bag them in?

Chef Kelly: Are they sweet bell peppers?

Carol: Uh, yeah, is there another kind of pepper?

I could have sworn I heard a big sigh on the phone, but it might have been my imagination.

Chef Kelly: What you need to do is to slice them and put the slices on a large cookie sheet so that none of them are touching each other, then freeze them on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to a plastic bag so they won’t stick together when you take them out.

Carol: But I don’t think I can do that. I have a lot of peppers.

Chef Kelly: How many peppers do you have?

Carol: Uh… about forty.

Then the unthinkable happened:

“FORTY PEPPERS? YOU HAVE FORTY PEPPERS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH FORTY PEPPERS?!?”

She yelled! What in the world?!? Is she watching too many Hell’s Kitchen reruns? I mean, really, Kelly was acting as if no one who knows what they are doing would go to a farmer’s market and buy forty-three peppers! C’mon! They were on sale!

So I ask you… is your mentor supposed to YELL at you?

Isn’t that dangerous? You know, like if you yell at a dog who accidentally poops on the carpet, and then the dog gets confused and is afraid to walk on carpet ever again?

What if I am afraid to walk into the farmer’s market ever again?

Thank goodness I didn’t tell her about the deal I found on okra.

Holy Cow, That’s a Lot of Potatoes, or other pickup lines you should never use.

Dear Chef Kelly,

I am in possession of four pounds of potatoes which will start resembling chia pets in a few days. What should I do with all the potatoes?

I know you will ask what kind of potatoes. They are the kind that have skin and grow in the ground.

Thanks in advance for your culinary guidance,

Carol

I knew Kelly wouldn’t abandon me in my time of need. A quick instant message exchange followed my email.

Chef Kelly: Why do you have four pounds of potatoes? You don’t save money if you have to throw things out!

Carol: I went to buy two baking potatoes and saw that I could get five pounds of potatoes for a dollar more. They. Were. On. Sale.

Chef Kelly: That’s a damn lot of potatoes.

Carol: So what do I do with them?

Chef Kelly: Go to foodnetwork.com and find a recipe.

Carol: Would Yoda tell Luke to go to the internet and learn how to be a Jedi?

Chef Kelly: Oh jeez.

Clearly, Kelly didn’t realize what was involved in agreeing to teach me to cook. I believe she needs some time to adjust.

I decided I want to make potato soup. I went to foodnetwork.com where I found many recipes, all of which called for an understanding of the kitchen that I don’t have.

What is a ricer? Do I have a ricer? Would I know if I did?
An immersion blender? I’m pretty sure I don’t have that.
And what exactly IS a leek?
And homemade chicken stock? Homemade? Are you serious?

Does that mean in order to get potato soup I must start with a chicken? And then what would I do with the chicken? What if I found a chicken recipe that required me to start with potato soup? I picture my kitchen as an M. C. Escher drawing and feel nauseous as I try to get to the microwave and repeatedly end up inside the refrigerator.

I need a different plan.

In Kelly’s early enthusiasm for my potential culinary transformation, she gave me a gift! Alice Waters’ book, The Art of Simple Food, arrived at my doorstep last week. It seems the goal is if I can learn to cook primarily with whole foods and fresh ingredients which are naturally in season, I will find cooking to be easier and the results more satisfying.

It’s hard to see what could be more satisfying than popping a Stouffer’s Family Size Frozen Meatloaf dinner into the microwave, but I’m willing to give Kelly and Alice Waters some latitude.

I open the book and am greeted with pictures of rosemary, tarragon, basil, marjoram, sage, and other herbs. But, wait, why do they look like BUSHES? Where are the shaker jars with labels with powder inside, on sale at Walmart for 3.99 for 16 ounces? I slam the book closed. Am I supposed to grow stuff? Forage? What?!?

I’m thinking Kelly has found the perfect way to get back at me for some trauma I caused her about ten years ago. Though I had long forgotten, apparently Kelly had not, because she reminded me of it last night when we were discussing how to work around the lack of immersion blender problem:

Kelly: I know you have a blender because when I gave you that beanie baby, you stored it inside the blender. That image bothered me for years.

Carol: Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about that.

Kelly: I never did.

Carol: Sorry.

Kelly: So anyway, you do have a blender.

Carol: Yes, but I’ll have to … uh… clean some … stuff… out of it.

Kelly: Oh jeez.

So today I’m off to the grocery store to spend extra money on ingredients to make soup from the potatoes I purchased on sale in order to save money.

I think AIG and Lehman Brothers started with a similar strategy.

Cacio e Pepe. That’s Cheez Whiz and Pepper, Right?

A recipe landed in my inbox the other day with the subject line, “This Sounds Yummy!”  I was excited about the prospect of “Yummy!”  I mean, who doesn’t like “Yummy!”?

It was labeled as a 30 minute meal, so that made it seem even “Yummy!-er” to me.

Maybe we’ll have it for dinner tonight!

The title of the recipe had fifteen words in it, three of them weren’t in English, and took me about a minute to read.  I had to look up the non-English words.  30-minute meal?  I’m already down to 27 minutes.

I pressed on.

Wait… what’s that word in the ingredient list?  Bocconcini.  What would a 15th Century Italian painter be doing in a 30 minute meal?  I googled “bocconcini.”    “Small, semi-soft, white and rindless unripened mild cheeses… and were once made only from the milk of water buffaloes.”

Uh.  Suddenly the 15th century Italian painter in a saute pan wasn’t sounding so bad.

I am certain the Chattanooga Food Lion does not have a Bocconcini aisle.  Perhaps there is a Bocconcini Cheez Whiz I could substitute.

21 minutes…

More ingredients.  Sausage.  Check.  See:  Italian painter in the saute pan.

Broccolini.  Oh great.  That’s gotta be related to broccoli, right?  Again, I envision asking for broccolini in Food Lion.  Blank stare, “brocca-whut?”  Yeah, dude, I don’t know either.

17 minutes…

Garlic.  Know what that is.  San Marzano tomatoes.  I don’t know where San Marzano is, but the Bi-Lo has Sand Mountain tomatoes which seem close enough to me.  Chicken stock or milk.  Now we’re talking, unless they mean “buffalo milk.”  Grated Pecorino Romano.  Oh crap.  I’m sure there’s some difference between romano and pecorino romano which involves 3.2 hours traveling to five stores to find it.  Tub of pesto.  Now any ingredient with the word “tub” in it, I’m sure I can find at Food Lion.

12 minutes….

On to the cooking instructions.  It’s a 30 minute meal, how hard can it be?  But why are there eight paragraphs?  And why if I add up all the cooking times in each paragraph does it come to 85 minutes?  And why does one paragraph start with, “While the balls are cooking…”  This truly doesn’t bode well for the 15th century Italian painter.

1 minute… tick, tick, tick… when does the Yummy! part start?… tick, tick, tick…

This story SHOULD end with, “… and then I woke up.”

But instead it ends with a confession.

I.  Can’t.  Cook.

There.  I said it.

Now this isn’t to say I don’t cook.  As I type this, I have pork chops in a crockpot.  I was all out of bocconcini, so I used Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix and chicken broth from a can instead.

But my dear friend Kelly, who has probably ended up in a fetal position the second she read the words “crockpot” and “from a can,” REALLY cooks.  She pretends like she can’t, but she’s brilliant at it.  She even has a fancy camera and lighting and takes really pretty photographs of what she cooks.  Kelly even makes her own pasta, which I think is a little over the top, but don’t tell her I said that.

Kelly is so incredibly accomplished at so many things, I’m astounded she’ll even be my friend.  I think it’s because I have so much blackmail information on her we have such a long history together.  Like all the trips to the casinos to work out our boyfriend issues on the blackjack dealers.  And going to happy hours to meet online people from AOL which inevitably ended up with someone drunk and screaming at the top of their lungs, “Oh yeah?  Well, I’ll meet you at the Waffle House at 2 am and I’ll kick your ass!”  You know… history.

Gosh, I’m glad Kelly won’t be reading this.

Anyway, Chef Kelly has taken pity on me and has agreed to try to teach me how to cook.  This is a little bit like agreeing to teach foreign policy to Miss Congeniality, but Kelly seems undaunted… even excited.

That’s a little over the top, but don’t tell her I said that.

I survived a basketball game at the Georgia Dome, and all I got was this lousy piece of insulation.

“Momma, I’m bored. I’m really bored.” Only from my six year old said it came out with lots more syllables: “Mahhmm-ahhh, I’m bohhhrrr-erd. I’m reallll-ly bohhherrr-erd.”

Then a large chunk of the side of the building blew out.

Atlanta’s Georgia Dome was an interesting place to be last Friday night.

My son and his godparents traveled with me from Chattanooga to Atlanta to meet my friend Mark, a Mississippi State alumni who had tickets to the night session of the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball tournament at the Georgia Dome.

My son Nick, attending his first basketball game, was enjoying it until … oh… halftime. Then he decided that he was bohhhrrr-erd. He had toys. He had books. He had cotton candy. He was horrified that this game was only half over, and there was a second game to start after that.

Mississippi State was winning when, on a remarkable shot at the buzzer, Alabama sent the game into overtime.

To make the evening even more magical, my son, who has type 1 diabetes and wears an insulin pump, had been battling a crashing low blood sugar and decided that he was tired of cotton candy and didn’t much care for Coca-Cola. I probably have the only six year old who gets tired of cotton candy and doesn’t much care for Coca-Cola. How about a big soft pretzel? He decided that a big soft pretzel would be a fast acting carbohydrate source he could get into.

Off I go to get the pretzel… quickly. Low blood sugars are nothing to mess around with.

Mark meets me at the pretzel stand. He’s going to grab a hot dog. I head back with the pretzel, and as the overtime starts, I begin the process of pumping pretzel in to my child’s mouth.

Fairly quickly it sounded as if some fans immediately up and to our right had suddenly come alive, pounding the arena chairs to make a lot of noise. I looked up and to my right to see where those fans were but saw nothing… other than more people looking up and to their right.

Then I noticed the lights and catwalks swaying. The big screen monitor, suspended from the ceiling and hanging over the heads of the section to our right, was bouncing. Wow, either that’s a remarkable special effect to fire up the fans… or we’re having an earthquake.

I kept waiting to feel the movement and tremors… which never came.

Then the noise got louder and louder. Then the side of the building, up and to the right, blew out. Things were flapping around and, wow, were we supposed to be able to look up and to our right and see outside? Then I felt a… sudden breeze. Then the temperature felt like it dropped about twenty degrees, and small pieces of debris started swirling around the arena.

My son had exchanged boredom for fear. Suddenly boredom didn’t feel so bad.

People left their seats and tried to exit the arena. Thankfully I saw no one panicking other than Nick who yells, “Momma, you left my TOYS!!!” Frankly, given the low blood sugar, I was more concerned with getting the cotton candy and pretzel in my backpack. Nick scurried back down the aisle to get the toys, because everyone knows, the key to survival of a low blood sugar coupled with a natural disaster directly involves McDonald’s Happy Meal Spiderwick toys. He returned, but the aisles were jammed and no one was able to move.

Mark was no where to be found so I sat back down with Nick while his godparents went to courtside on a reconnaissance mission to steal… I mean… find some Gatorade at the player’s benches for Nick, still with a low blood sugar who now felt that eating a pretzel and surviving a tornado were totally incompatible.

By this time the announcer comes over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, there are high winds in the area.”

Well. Duh.

“Please remain calm, and inside the arena until the storm passes.”

The announcer frequently repeats this, and slowly people start to believe that the Georgia Dome isn’t going to collapse … at least not within the next minute or two.

This was followed by another announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Georgia Dome has been inspected and is structurally sound,” followed by the suggestions to remain calm and return to your seats.

I wondered how engineers could, in five minutes, inspect a 72,000 seat arena covering almost nine acres and deem it structurally sound. Probably Georgia Tech engineers. I was hoping they weren’t Mississippi State engineers, but don’t tell Mark I said that. I was really hoping the inspectors weren’t the guy at the Papa John’s pizza stand and the girl who sold me the soft pretzel, but given the time frame, I feared this might be case.

More people returned to their seats, and the aisles continued to clear. Nick’s godparents returned with a plastic bottle half way full of Gatorade. I didn’t ask who drank the other half. Nick drank the rest of the Gatorade, effectively ending the blood sugar crisis. Mark reappeared and sat beside us.

“You know the upside of going through a natural disaster?” Mark asks. “People were so concerned with other things, I had a clear path with my hot dog to the condiment stand!”

Obviously Mark wasn’t the one up there working to keep the crowds calm or to inspect the structural integrity of the building, but I was still relieved to know there was no damage to the relish tray.

Mark also explained how, if this were going to be his last minutes on earth, he didn’t want to spend them with an empty stomach.

I completely understood. After all… Mississippi State… ’nuff said.

I have no idea how much time passed, but at some point the announcer asked people to return to their seats so the clock can be reset and overtime will resume.

Clock will be reset? Overtime will resume? Were they not aware that if I look… up and to my right… in this enormous brick and concrete structure, I can see… outside? And what about those things that look like giant tarps flapping around up there? That’s not supposed to be there, is it? And what about the people with the seats under the giant screen monitor which was dancing around less than 30 minutes ago? Did the Papa John’s guy crawl up there to inspect that? And is that a rip in the roof?

The people most in denial about what just happened and most excited about play resuming were the massive numbers of crazed Kentucky fans, decked out in blue and white (fight, fight, fight!), anxiously wanting overtime to end so Kentucky could start their game. They had by now sat through a tornado AND most of the Mississippi State game. They had paid their dues!

I can’t speak for the rest of the folks in the arena, but I was feeling like things were more than a bit surreal. I wondered if this was, perhaps, what the passengers on the Titanic felt as they were being served dinner after taking the unexpected tour of an iceberg.

Mississippi State won in overtime, so apparently two very statistically unlikely events CAN happen in the same evening!

Now most of the time the story would end here, but that would only be when the story is written by an author with a keen sense of comedic timing.

So on we go… it seems that most of the people decided to stay inside the Georgia Dome. My son, now quite a bit calmer and once again with a normal range blood sugar, said to me, “Momma, I think God sent the tornado so I wouldn’t be bored anymore!”

I try to be a good parent, but I had no clue what to say to that one.

He’s obviously not a subscriber to Pat Robertson’s natural disasters as a punishment for sin theory. I thought about explaining the relationship between downtown Atlanta and sin, but I decided against it. I considered launching into an explanation about global warming and changing weather patterns, but I decided against it. I thought about explaining randomness and the fragility of life, but I decided against that, too.

Instead I said, “Yeah, it’s sure not boring anymore. How do you like your first basketball game so far?”

The loudspeaker announcements continued:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the National Weather Service reports there are more severe storms in the area. Please feel free to remain in the Georgia Dome until the severe weather has passed.”

Could a tornado strike twice? Could Georgia actually beat Kentucky?

The announcements continued:

Remain calm.
Stay inside the Georgia Dome.
More storms in the area.
Stay inside the Georgia Dome.
The building is structurally sound.
Stay inside the Georgia Dome.
More storms in the area.

And finally, in a moment of sanity, came the announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the second game of the session has been postponed and will not be played tonight.”

Throughout the arena the Kentucky fans (did I mention they were crazed?) broke out in a chorus of “Booooooooooooo!”

More storms in the area.
Remain calm.
Stay inside the Georgia Dome until the storms have passed.

And then, in a twist found only in Twilight Zone episodes, came the announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Georgia Dome will be closing in fifteen minutes.”

The crowd let out a collective gasp of disbelief. Fifteen minutes?

I had been able to remain relatively calm through having a child with type 1 diabetes who was experiencing a blood sugar crash and refusing to eat cotton candy and Coke while a tornado hit the Georgia Dome and ripped off a chunk of the building. But I became a lot more anxious when I realized that once the decision was made to cancel the games, we were being kicked to the curb in a tornadic aftermath.

Stunned fans stood up and filed out.

We made our way out the door, turned the corner, and immediately started stepping over large pieces of the Georgia Dome which had fallen away from the building. My, my, this was much worse outside than I’d imagined. I picked up a piece of the Georgia Dome off the sidewalk and put it in my backpack. Yeah, it wasn’t a T-shirt, but a souvenir is a souvenir.

We continued to follow the crowd, and we walked close to the building, across broken glass and large sheets of twisted metal. Mark later pointed out that having a crowd walking next to a huge arena with large pieces of broken building on high still hanging down might be a bit of a safety concern.

If the Georgia Dome had an emergency plan other than “Remain calm, Stay inside, We’re canceling the game, Get out in fifteen minutes” it was a little hard to tell they were following it.

I mentioned later to Mark that an emergency plan should include having the “Yellow Coat Security People” serving designated crowd control and calming functions. He noted that since he was upstairs on the concourse eating his hot dog during the tornado, he was able to see there was, indeed, an emergency plan involving the Yellow Coat Security People: several were congregated close to him, discussing which exit would be the best for them to get out of if things started turning uglier. Nice.

We walked toward our car across a sidewalk covered with broken glass, past the World Congress Center which was now almost completely an open air building with a huge waterfall cascading off the top floor onto the sidewalk. By this time Mark separated us from the crowd so we were finally walking closer to the street than the buildings.

Mark joked earlier about hearing a news report that the game was canceled because my beige van with Tennessee-Hamilton County plates and a “John Edwards for President” sticker on the back had been located upside down on top of the Georgia Dome. Ha. Ha. But as we walked, since I was parked just on the other side of the open-air waterfall-cascading World Congress Center, I wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful that my vehicle was going to be completely intact… or even there at all.

We had to cross only one side street to get to the parking lot. There was a large crosswalk, and two Atlanta police officers were standing on the sidewalk. Safe enough, we thought. We started to cross and were almost run down… repeatedly… by cars speeding through the crosswalk as the police officers stood there and watched. Probably Kentucky fans.

Amazingly, with no help from the police officers, we made it to the parking lot. My van was untouched. Have you heard the stories about a person who would have been shot in the heart but a small Gideon’s Bible in his shirt pocket stopped the bullet and saved him? I think my “John Edwards for President” sticker might have served the same function for my van.

I knew there was a reason to keep it on there.

We were able to get out of the parking lot and make the two hour drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga in only three and a half hours. Not bad, considering.

Mark earlier said he wanted to see Mississippi State involved in a blowout.

I blame him.