Travel adventures

I was spoiled in 2013, with a trip to Florida for the BCS championship game (a fabulous time, but the less said about the actual game, the better); trips to California for a TACA conference and for spring break fun; a European vacation with Lauren and Maddie, my mom, and my sisters; and a trip to Vegas to celebrate Mike's milestone birthday and our milestone anniversary.

When the holidays rolled around, I discovered Mixbook, a great site that allowed my sisters and me to collaborate on photo books. As much as I love digital photos, and the convenience of pulling out my phone to show off important pictures, I still love making and looking at photo books. Part of me still loves holding a finished product in my hand.

Here is the book I designed for Lauren and Maddie:

| Start your own Photo Books | Create custom Christmas Cards

The year in pictures

2013 lent itself to photo gifts. Lauren and Maddie had a lot of adventures to commemorate and also have freshly painted rooms, with plenty of space for wall art. 

The day we spent at California Adventure may have been Leah's favorite day of the year. All of the day's activities revolved around the Phineas and Ferb Dance Party showtimes. Luckily, Lauren and Maddie were game. Leah spent all four shows getting as close to the title characters as possible. The whole cast was very tolerant.

Swim team is the highlight of Maddie's summer. Mike and I cannot take any credit for the shots of her in the water -- she has a teammate whose father shoots hundreds of pictures at every meet. I thought she should get to enjoy some of them.

 

Lauren is in a major photobombing phase. She deserves to have some of these faces staring back at her in the mornings.

Happy birthday, part 2: Nosh on!

For my father, there was a very fine line between 'poignant' and 'snivelly.' A few weeks after Lauren, Maddie, and I got back from Europe, I was looking for some culinary inspiration and ran across this gem:

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After he retired, Dad discovered he quite liked taking charge of the cooking and was adept at improvising in the kitchen. One Christmas, he decided he needed to pass on the culinary knowledge he'd accumulated over the years. His 'Guide to Good Nosh' was born.

Thumbing through it, I could practically hear him. Sprinkled throughout the recipes were Dad's unique pearls of parental wisdom.

A few examples:

• His cooking instructions for Salmon Dijon Eh!: "Stick in oven. Pour glass of wine and sip while waiting 25 mins."
• Marinade for kebabs: "Mix and mash, simmer for as long as you like. This also removes odors from most bathrooms."
• Louisiana Crab Cakes: "Serve with remoulade sauce or store-bought tartar sauce if you are planning to prepare the spare bedroom."
• Oven-Roasted Lamb Shanks (notes about the red wine in the recipe): "Any red plonque will do, but I prefer port wine ... The raisins plump up into little port pills!"
• On the red wine called for in his Coq Au Vin recipe: "If you are cooking a lot you can use half wine and half chicken stock -- you miserable cheapskate."
• Serving suggestion for his Rubbishy Lemon Chicken recipe (which shares a page with his Classic Lemon Chicken recipe): "Serve with any old rubbish your laziness deserves!"
• Bashed In Chicken (the first step to making stuffed chicken breasts): "Take a meat mallet, baseball bat, chopper blade or rolling pin and pound the hell out of the chicken. I find it easier if you pick a chicken named Hillary."
• In the tapas section: "Give one to each guest and keep the rest for yourself."

I can almost hear him saying Buenos noshes!

Happy birthday, Dad

Today, my father would have turned 70. I am (naturally) behind on posting the summer travel pictures. In Dad's honor, I am skipping to the middle of the trip, to the day we dedicated to him. 

As the plans evolved for my summer trip to Europe with Lauren and Maddie, we added an important day to our itinerary. My mom decided it was time to bring Dad home to England. He was cremated; the plan was to scatter some of his ashes in significant places. We spent a Saturday morning leaving pieces of him at four important places.

Our first stop was the final furlong at Ascot racecourse. My father grew up in nearby Sunninghill. His father was a frequent visitor to the track here. There was no racing that day, so we were able to access the grounds and walk right up to the rails.  

The grandstand was redone in '06, and many, including Dad, were unhappy with the views from the grandstand after that. Nonetheless, Ascot was one of Dad's favorite places for most of his life.

The new grandstand.

The final furlong.

After a beautiful walk, and more than a few tears, we went on to a spot along the Thames River, in Runnymede. We chose the Thames because Dad always loved the water.

He would have enjoyed the boat docked across the way, too.

Our third stop was the churchyard where his parents are buried. Bringing part of him back to his parents felt right.

The church.

I still can't look at this picture without tearing up a bit.

We went on to the Nags Head, meeting up with old friends from our time in England, including Dad's best mate, Reg. The best part about the group from the Nags has always been that it doesn't matter whether it's been 10 hours or 10 years since our last visit -- the welcome is warm and the conversation is easy. We left a bit of Dad in the garden there.

Site of many midday pints back in the day. Now that Heather is an adult, she found her luck with the fruit machine wasn't quite the same.

It was the perfect end to our tribute to him. And it truly felt like we'd brought him home.

Fiddy

Our summer adventures started in May, with a certain milestone birthday. We celebrated Mike with a surprise party, and in retrospect, scheduling said party 10 days after the birthday was an act of genius, since I spent his birthday weekend with a still-contagious case of pneumonia.

Mike's friend/former coworker Stacey used a golf game to get him out of the house. Somehow, even though she gave him a 10-minute head start, Stacey arrived at the party before he did. [Insert elderly driver joke here. We did.]

He was greeted by this:

Best. Party favor. Ever.

My sister Heather introduced me to the Face Kebab when she had a bunch of them made for my brother-in-law Kevin's 40th. I knew we needed them for Mike too. Since we still have quite a few of them left, it's possible the kids will all go as Mike for Halloween.

He ditched the head gear as soon as he could.

The party location was Putnam Lane's usual site for shenanigans: the shared driveway area across the street from our house. One driveway held the food (including County Line barbecue), another held the band, hidden behind a garage door until showtime. Their mandate: To play as many Who songs as they could.

Mike joined the band for a few numbers

He wasn't the only one enamored with the bongos. Leah was particularly enamored, and the band was really good to her.

The festivities continued well into the night. The next morning, Mike wasn't the only old who might have been feeling his age.

Some partygoers were exhausted by 11 or so ...

... And then found a fifth wind and kept going.

Not in my backyard

One of the hot topics in my news feed last week was a hateful, anonymous screed directed toward an Ontario family living with autism. I've mentally responded to the writer about 15 different ways, sometimes like a trucker, other times with a lacerating monologue (think West Wing in its heyday). It wasn't just the writer's vicious words that upset me -- the letter itself was a reminder that Leah's world may never be completely insulated from intolerance.

I left those responses in my head, because taking the time to type them felt akin to giving that writer more energy than he or she deserves. Soon another, happier thought rose alongside the anger: Not in my backyard. Whatever happens in the wider world, in this neighborhood, Leah is safe. We have awesome neighbors. And the good people are the ones who deserve the words, not the sociopaths.

Leah flaps and vocalizes and sometimes delivers 'yes' or 'no' answers in threes. Sometimes she doesn't answer at all when spoken to -- one thing she has in common with many 13-year-olds. At our neighbors' houses, she has made herself at home in upstairs bedrooms and in backyard hammocks and swings, usually without taking the trouble to ask permission. Once we had to stop her from breaking into the home of her favorite cat because she wanted to say hello.

How do the neighbors respond? With acceptance. With smiles. Sometimes with kindness we may never fully repay. Wherever the fun is on Putnam Lane, our family feels welcome. This week's story reminded me that we can't take that for granted.  

Thud [Cough]

The other shoe dropped, again, which gives me the opportunity to make another running-related pun.

Off I went on Friday, for another endoscopy to gauge my ulcer recovery. The innards looked fine, the anemia numbers are improving, but it turns out I was incubating a case of pneumonia.

So instead of carousing in honor of his birthday, Mike spent Friday at the hospital with me for said endoscopy; Friday night with the kids and the puppy while I tried to sleep off a fever; Saturday chauffeuring kids and canceling the sitter while the fever persisted; and Sunday sending me to the Minute Clinic and cooking a dinner that I ate in bed.

I have no experience with pneumonia, and had to quiz the doctor on duration and symptoms. The longest-lasting one? Fatigue.

I'm fatigued with fatigue.

Even though I am making outstanding progress toward my $5,000 goal, at this rate the June 5K isn't going to happen. However, my word is my bond (I think Elizabeth Dole once said that about Bob when he ran for president), so if your reason for giving was the image of me running, don't despair. I will keep my word on a new timetable, and run in the fall. The added benefit? You can imagine me training in July.

I am behind on my thank-yous, and happily, I have a quite a few to give:

Julie O'Sullivan. My sister. How does she owe me? Let me count the ways ...

Patsy Hamilton. My mother-in-law, and a devoted grandmother. But which half of her made the donation? The mother-in-law half might have ulterior motives.

Andrew and Jamie Dorman. He and I go back to high school. Enough said.

Cheryl Grant and Christine Musselman. Members of the Bunco group I've lost money to on a regular basis. Cheryl is the workout buddy of my neighbor Heather, and probably wants someone else on the business end of Heather's wine-fueled training plans.

Theresa Baxter, Teresa Crofoot, Michelle Rancourt, and Tara Wittig. Neighbors who are either really supportive, need a good laugh, or want to use me as target practice.

Karen Ramey. Fellow Domer. I thought alumni were supposed to stick together?

Christine Lucy. A friend of my sister Julie's from Georgetown. What did Julie tell her?

Seriously, TACA families appreciate your donations. Your help keeps our families moving toward recovery. Our page is still live, until June 30.

The finish line, finally

Finding Leah's next school felt a lot like a college search. (The closest we'll ever come to one with this child.) A welcome, if time-consuming, after-effect of Leah's victory in IEP Round 4 was the amount of time we spent fact-finding, and then waiting for gut instinct to take over as we evaluated which place has the best chance of preparing her for the rest of her life.

Up for discussion were three school programs that will likely keep Leah until she's 21. After that, school won't be the center of her life anymore, and her days will need to be filled with something else. We hope a job will be part of that equation, as well as other activities that will make her happy. Overall,  not terribly different from our aspirations for Lauren and Maddie. Certainly this decision felt every bit as significant as the choices we'll help them make as they finish high school.

I've been out of college longer than I care to admit, but I'm not too old to remember what it was like to check out college campuses. I found a few similarities:

Tours. All three schools we visited were happy to show off their facilities. At my alma mater, Notre Dame, the tour highlights included the golden dome, the football stadium, and Touchdown Jesus. I checked out dorm rooms and the student center. For Leah, the classroom highlights were iPads and SmartBoards, and she happily sampled OT gyms and calming areas. The bubble column at Kennedy Krieger was a favorite.

Interviews. Admissions teams want to know all about student strengths and weaknesses. Prospective college students are all about self-promotion. Parents of prospective nonpublic students are all about the weaknesses. It's how we arrive at the application process. Your kid draws bubble guppies all over every other language arts assignment? Tosses Crocs? Flips chairs? Make sure all of it is on the record. While Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) are the sole province of the special education school, Notre Dame's Office of Student Affairs probably would have liked one for every student in the school, with provisions like limiting access to beer and the opposite sex.

Life skills. On college campuses, you can usually find professors who seem ill-equipped to function outside the classroom. At least Leah will get some life skills instruction during the week to go along with her academics. Truth be told, Leah is already better with laundry than I was in college. I used to put it off until I'd been through every last pair of underwear. Leah likes to launder every Sunday. (During my years at Notre Dame, the women's dorms came with washing machines. The men's dirty clothes went to St. Michael's Laundry, until it burned down in my junior year. Ha.)

Tuition. Next year, Notre Dame will cost about $57,000 in tuition, room, and board. Nonpublic tuition around here averages more than $65,000. Unbelievably, I found a way to make Notre Dame look like a bargain. The other major difference is that Anne Arundel County Public Schools will be receiving the tuition bills.

The best news is that we found a school we're truly excited about. Leah will start at St. Elizabeth School in Baltimore on May 13. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the extra mental energy, in the absence of fretting about school. We're definitely ready to return to one IEP meeting per year for awhile.

Onward and upward, we hope.

More thank yous, and a few hurdles

My first thank you has to go to my Enabler-in-Chief, my sister Heather Cocks. I mentioned my 5K scheme, and she agreed to take me running (the first time I've willingly run anywhere). So I tried it, on a nice, dirt track during our trip to California, and I didn't keel over. If she found her older sister pathetic, she hid it well, and she enabled me even further with a donation soon after I went home to Maryland. Of course, this is the sister whose Cabbage Patch doll got a really weird nickname (courtesy of me), and who was briefly nicknamed Young Ploppy after a character in Blackadder. 

Maybe Heather's support is not so benign after all.

In keeping with this year's track and field theme (what good is a theme if you can't exhaust all possible metaphors?), I hit a hurdle pretty soon after I got home from California. One look at my donation page told me I'm going to have to actually learn to run for real, since I'm more than halfway there.

My intestines had other ideas. 

A week ago Friday, I ended up in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer. Two nights, two units of blood, and two days on clear liquids later, and I was discharged with some stomach-healing meds, orders not to take up smoking, and strong suggestions that I avoid spicy, acidic foods for a while. No activity restrictions, but a warning that, due to the anemia that has accompanied the ulcer, I might not have a lot of endurance, and I should be prepared to take it easy.

(They also asked whether I have a lot of stress. Um, yeah. I mentioned that if they didn't manage to discharge me by Monday morning, I would be attending IEP Round 4 with my IVs still in my veins.)

They were right about my endurance. It isn't pretty. A half hour's worth of physical activity and I'm ready for a nap. In one of life's great ironies, I have a perfect excuse not to run anywhere, and I'm annoyed about it. Where was this about 30 years ago, when every gym class was a nightmare? My donation totals tell me I'm probably going to have to do this, so on I go, maybe a little more slowly. Twelve-year-old me would not approve at all. 

That means it's time for some more thank-yous. Sort of. These are people who knew their donations were pushing me toward the starting line. 

Ginny Reed. My aunt, who is either really supportive of Leah, or found a way to let me know I was never her favorite niece.

Heather Taylor. My athletic neighbor, who offered herself as a running partner. I've played Bunco with both Heather and one of her frequent workout partners from her gym. Cheryl often complained that whenever Heather had a few glasses of red, she devised new, torturous workouts for them. Which means the next time I see her carrying a bottle it's going to be time for some sprints. 

Colleen Sugar. We worked together at The Dallas Morning News, my first job out of college. She was a great colleague. Did I steal too many office supplies from her desk?

Diane Kirk. Diane is a runner herself, an autism mom, and a Health/PE teacher who organizes an autism walk for her freshmen every year and directs the proceeds to TACA. A runner herself, she offered to do this as-yet-unchosen 5K with me. We could do a re-enactment of The Tortoise and the Hare.

Chris Lucey. An old friend from Notre Dame, who lettered in track there. Thank God he lives too far away to watch any of this.

Dan Cichalski. A fellow ex-Observerite from Notre Dame, although he was there with Heather, not me. I expect to see him at the finish line with a Primanti Brothers sandwich.

Seriously, TACA families appreciate your donations. Your help keeps our families moving past hurdles of their own. Our page is still live, until June 30.

Deep gratitude

Before I start 'thanking' the people who donated to TACA on our family's behalf after I announced my 5K plan, I'm going to express my gratitude to my first donors, who I am reasonably confident are not motivated by a desire to torture me.

• My mother, Kathie Cocks. OK, she might owe me a few hours of punishment. If I had announced this before she gave her gift, she might have funded the full amount. Seriously, though, she is an amazing grandmother to Leah, completely supportive of everything, and even willing to do overnight babysitting and give supplements. That may seem like the world's feeblest compliment, but trust me, it isn't. Sadly, I have met autism parents who tell me about grandparents who are unwilling to be left alone with their autistic grandchildren. We know what we have, and we're grateful for it.
• Isaac and Sheila Heimbinder. The Heimbinders lived down the street from us when I was in elementary school. They have been generous to TACA every year since our chapter formed. They saw a few of my attempts to play sports as a kid and if they've read about the 5K plan, they might be thinking, "Yeah, right."
• Chris and Christine Donnelly and John Blasi and Kathy Stohr. Unfailingly supportive every year. We go back to college and late nights at The Observer (longer ago than anyone cares to admit). If they'd known about the 5K, they might have kept their wallets closed. They've seen me stumble around enough already.
• Debbie Wetzel. Debbie runs Partners For Success, which is a great source of information and assistance for parents of kids with all types of disabilities in our county school system. Their lending library is great, convenient, and free. Debbie comes to our meetings when she can and spreads the word about our chapter.
• Eric and Kera Matsui. They moved in down the street last summer and they already fit into our neighborhood like they've been here for years. Their families might want to stage an intervention.
• Mike and Leslie McQuade. See above. Only difference is, they live across the street.
• Cheryl Peeples. An amazing mother warrior. I met her at an Autism One conference several years back. I'm hoping to get back to another one sometime soon, and when I do, I hope she'll be there.
• Steve and Melissa Slatnick. Great neighbors, great supporters of our family. If I'd asked Steve's advice, he probably would have suggested a bike ride instead of a run.
• Ben and Jonnie Dorman. Cherished friends from my family's time living in England. Lauren and Maddie had great fun meeting their grandchildren on our recent trip to California.

I try to do 'real' thank you notes too, which I usually save until the end of the campaign in June, when I can report our total. In the meantime, maybe a virtual shout-out isn't too much of an etiquette violation? Thank you all for your gifts to TACA. Our page is still live, until June 30.

Autism is definitely not a sprint

Two things are high on my to-do list this spring: Exercise more, and kick off the fundraising for our Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) chapter. I had a brain wave one day (I know, yikes) and decided to combine the two. So here's my pledge: If I raise $5,000 by the end of May, I will run a 5K in June. That may not seem like much, except that I have spent most of my life avoiding running anywhere. It's usually not pretty when I undertake any kind of athletic endeavor. If you ever took a PE class with me, you know this already. In short, I have found a way to make autism truly feel like a marathon.

So, if you want to make a donation in honor of autism awareness month (or to get a tax deduction before April 15), you can visit our family's page at http://faf.tacanow.org/2013/MD/leah/. If you want to imagine me running around Crofton, grumbling all the way, click on the same link. Also, check back here every now and then. If I have to train for this thing, I will probably be writing about it (and possibly 'wimping and whinging,' as my dad would have said).

World Autism Awareness Day

Today, the eyes of the world are supposed to turn toward autism. Autism Speaks actually uses the word 'celebrate' in connection with its Light It Up Blue campaign, which draws participation from notable landmarks like the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Sydney Opera House, and even Reunion Tower in my former home of Dallas, Texas.

The pictures look pretty, if you like symbolic gestures. The use of the word 'celebrate' in connection with an epidemic disturbs me. We're now at 1 in 88 -- or 1 in 50 schoolchildren, according to a recent study. The kids we're celebrating are going to get awfully expensive once they start aging out of the school system.

Does that mean we don't celebrate our beloved Leah? Quite the opposite. We celebrate who she is in spite of her autism. A couple of weeks ago, she was poked and prodded at a clinic at Kennedy Krieger, told what she could eat and when, and stayed still for blood draws even as the techs muttered things like 'tough stick.' Leah is my hero.

People with autism can be some of the most uniquely gifted individuals around. I will happily celebrate a kid's perfect pitch. I have applauded and been genuinely in awe of a couple of students who, when given a date (past or future), can tell you what day of the week it falls on. I can think of a couple more who will be graduating from sought-after magnet programs in our local school district. I am thrilled to watch them advocate for themselves. People with their gifts are often the ones you'll see representing autism during all of the awareness events.

Their achievements are celebration-worthy, but they only tell a fraction of the story. True autism awareness means looking past the blue buildings and thinking about what life might be like for people across the spectrum. Trust me, we are aware of autism in our house every single day.

We were aware of autism during our California vacation this week, when one of the Phineas and Ferb dance parties at Disneyland did not go off as scheduled. Other park visitors were too. During later shows (we were front and center for all of them), Phineas and Ferb themselves were quite aware, as Leah edged closer and closer to them with every song. Thankfully they -- and the accompanying Fireside Girls -- treated Leah with good humor and compassion. At the end of that day we were aware again, when we had to leave the park rather abruptly, because Leah was done for the day. We know the consequences of pushing her too hard, so we listened when she said she was done, even though we had to 'disappear' without a proper goodbye to some very old, cherished friends.

My sister and her family were aware a couple of times during our visit this week, when Leah woke around 2:00 am and decided it was the right time to play the piano. Sometimes parents don't get much sleep when they're trying to safeguard the rest of others.

Not long after we get back, we'll be in a conference room again for our next round of school system warfare. I'm pretty sure we've raised some awareness among our Facebook friends with our IEP-related status updates. This next round should be the decisive one. The overarching theme: Schools can be spectacularly ill-equipped to work with ASD kids. Districts will make tremendous efforts to avoid admitting that's true, until it becomes painfully obvious to everyone that their efforts are a lot like putting lipstick on a pig. By then, a lot of time has been lost.

Amid all of this awareness, we work hard to have hope. Sometimes it's easy. The contentment on Leah's face as we ride the ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier and her excitement as her feet touch the Pacific Ocean remind us that she has the same capacity to enjoy her life as the rest of us do. Those are the moments we celebrate. Not Leah's autism, but the moments we see through it to the beautiful soul inside.

If you want to honor families with autism this month -- or any other, because facing autism is definitely a 365-day proposition -- please consider a donation to an organization that helps families. Since 2008, I have been a chapter coordinator for Talk About Curing Autism (whose founder, my friend Lisa Ackerman, also blogged about 'celebrating' autism). I give TACA my time because their resources go where they're needed most -- toward supporting families. Our family's annual fundraising page is online, and includes a written update and a video. Please pay us a virtual visit, and help us honor Leah -- the person, not the diagnosis.

 

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BCS = Bloody Charlotte Stores

Heather and I traveled on the same flight to Charlotte before heading our separate ways. I thought the Charlotte airport might be a relief, since Fort Lauderdale was still plastered with ND-Alabama-BCS everywhere, but there was no escape, even a couple of states away.

On the people mover, we passed EA Sports first, with its SEC-centric window and Alabama championship t-shirts on display.

Please, God, let us roll past the Tide.

Next door, we noticed the mannequin in front of this boutique was decked out in Alabama red and houndstooth. 

Really?

When we rolled past the next storefront, I was ready to jump off and place an order.

Where's a bottle of Patron when you need it??

BCS = Big Collegiate Shenanigans

I started this post almost a month ago, and then life, work, and the Manti Te'o shenanigans sapped my blogging motivation. I found this post today, and decided that the game day recap deserved to be finished, as a celebration of Mike's awesome Christmas gift.

Game day was in fact perfect, until about the second play of the game. Things got painful after that, but even the score of the game itself couldn't wipe out the fun of the pregame activities.

We began the day with an early lunch at Primanti Brothers, which Heather and her ND friends Dan and Nate knew about and loved from visits to Pittsburgh, and I knew about through Maddie's love of Man vs. Food. Primanti Brothers sandwiches combine the meat and the sides (cole slaw and fries) between two hefty slices of bread. First order of business after their arrival at our table? Photography, followed by Facebook posts.

Food wins: I could only finish half. The other half was my post-game comfort food.

I followed the crowd and posted mine too, because I figured Maddie would appreciate it. As the others surrendered themselves to sandwich bliss, I briefly considered yanking a few chains by making an 'ick' face after my first bite. I changed my mind when I realized I would probably be dumped in the ocean. Primanti Brothers is no joke. It actually was an excellent sandwich.

At the end of lunch, two more of Heather's friends (and fellow ex-Observerites) arrived from Virginia. In itself, not unusual for a team with a national following. But these two left their houses at the end of the Redskins game the night before (about 9 p.m.) and drove straight through. As Heather put it in her blog post for New York magazine, they "still hadn't slept when they cracked their first Yuengling at our tailgate." No, they didn't have tickets. They just wanted to be there. Since they were the only ones with the fortitude to act like they were still in college, they were heroes.

Hail the conquering heroes: The all-night drivers are on the left and right.

The obligatory I-was-really-there photo.

We got to the Orange Bowl early, and discovered (again) that ND outnumbered Bama by a hefty margin in the parking lots. Taligating skills were on full display. What better way to begin the festivities than to run into Manti Te'o's dad in the parking lot. He was friendly, clearly thrilled to be there, and willing to pose for a picture. One more reason to want the Irish to win, I told Heather. Sigh.

(At this point, I like to imagine that to Brian Te'o, 'catfish' was still something you rolled in batter, deep fried, and ate with tartar sauce.)

Te'o-gating.

I am old enough to remember the ND campus swarming with students in Catholics vs Convicts t-shirts during the height of the Notre Dame-Miami hatred. Heather and I ran in to the 2013 version during our tailgating adventures.

Love it.

We also ran into a dude with a giant beer cross. Or a sword. We still aren't totally sure which. Here is Heather pretending to drink from it:

And me being knighted by it.

Good thing I did this before we ran into the chick with the bourbon shots.

Reunited!

Another highlight of the weekend was the chance to see my roommate, Rachel. Both of us were convinced that we would run into more people from our class. Then we realized we were scanning the crowd for 22-year-olds, and that ain't us anymore. That's a good way to sober up quickly.

And then it was time to go into the game. We all know what happened next. I tried to stay on a media blackout for as long as possible, but Deadspin and Manti Te'o made that difficult.

However, we won the Battle of the Bands. (By halftime, we were already grasping at straws.) But what's not to like about a tribute to Back to the Future?

The Delorean. The Irish Guard is producing the smoke.

ND fans outnumbered Bama in one more way. I'd swear there were more of us in the stadium at the end of the game. A family of four Bama fans in front of us left with about four minutes to go. We ran into another one on the escalator right after the game, and when we congratulated her and asked her why she wasn't staying for the trophy presentation, she replied, "Oh, we've been to three of these, and I have to get back to South Beach." Say what you will about Notre Dame fans; we don't leave.

BCS = Bizarre Clothing Selections

Or rather, 'clothing.'

Anything above the waist in this pic is body paint. There was a similarly painted Alabama dancer nearby. A couple of doors down, a drag queen was leading a bar in shouts of, "We are ND!" Hopefully Father Hesburgh's handlers weren't taking him out for some air on South Beach this afternoon.

In other fashion news, we have seen more skintight gold pants this weekend than I thought existed. On the Alabama side, lots of houndstooth and fedoras to go with all the red, and quite a few diamond-encrusted, cowboy-booted women.

 

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BCS = Bringing Catholics to South Beach

Saturday, January 6

1:00 ish

This town seems ready for us:

I like that Manti looks like he's about to sack McCarron.

Do you think NIU's welcome for the Orange Bowl was this enthusiastic?

2:00 ish

Florida is not considered an intellectual heavyweight state. This is the land of the hanging chad, among other things. Floridians can be quite clever when they apply themselves, though.

Heather and I decided to pay a visit to South Beach, the epicenter of the pre-game festivities. Traffic and parking, while never simple, should probably carry a surgeon general's warning when the area is overrun with ND and Bama fans. After a couple of false starts, and after giving some consideration to a sit-down meal at a swanky restaurant just so we could use their valet, we spotted a small parking garage. We'd driven in before we saw the rates: $40 for up to two hours, $50 for 2-6 hours. Prepaid. Too hard to back out, and truth be told, I think we would have paid twice that to GET OUT OF THE DAMN CAR. And of course we ponied up the extra $10, because we didn't feel like watching the clock. We reminded ourselves that we'd paid $25 each, which we've paid for parking at sporting events, amusement parks, or even city garages. That sounded a lot better. Needless to say, we were determined to stay on South Beach for at least two hours and one minute.

Floridians aren't dumb. They just have different priorities.

Less than two hours, one minute later

It's beginning to feel a lot like the Orange Bowl:

 

We posed for some pix in the fan experience also. If the ratio of blue and gold to red on South Beach is any indication, I expect ND fans to be in the majority in the stadium.

 

We also spent some time in a beer tent talking to a random alum from the 60s who showed us pix of his grandson and invited us to his massive tailgater the next time we go out for a game (which, given my track record of returning to campus, could be in fifteen years or so). Every so often, he turned around and called 'borracho!' to a woman behind us who was buying him drinks because she thought he looked like Jack Nicholson. I think borracho pretty much summed it up for him.

 

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BCS = Best Christmas Surprise

Saturday, January 5

10:30 pm

The elevator at the hotel is slower than my grandfather driving through a Christmas light show. (He REALLY liked to savor the lights.) Before we left for dinner, we let the front desk know our room smelled a bit damp. On our way back in, we were in the elevator with a guy holding Febreze, towels, and a to-do list with our room number on it. He got off on the third floor, dropped the towels off somewhere, and arrived at our fourth floor room, Febreze in hand, at the same time we did. Note to selves: Allow 20 minutes travel time to the breakfast buffet.

9 pm

When I looked over the hotel reservation and started to re-orient myself to Fort Lauderdale, I wondered if the hotel was located near one of our favorite landmarks from our time in South Florida. Every time we took 595 from our place in Plantation into Fort Lauderdale, we could see it from the highway: the mausoleum for the Forest Lawn funeral home. Or, as we reverently called it, The Pyramid of Death. We were not disappointed. It's right across the street.



Hopefully it is not a bad omen for the Irish.

The woman at our hotel check-in brightly inquired whether we are going on a cruise. She looked confused when we told her we're here for the BCS championship game.

8 pm

Lots of BCS signage and welcome goodies at the Fort Lauderdale airport, which appears to have spent much of the last decade under construction, with minimal progress. I rounded a corner into what looked like a mostly-finished shopping area designed to look like a cutesy village and saw this:

As Heather put it on Facebook, "It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this is an art installation, and not just some sad dude in a strange room." Oh, Florida, I have missed your quirks.

5 pm

The crowd at the gate in Charlotte is sporting a lot of ND blue and gold. I feel like I am traveling incognito because I am not wearing anything with Notre Dame on it. I end up seated next to an older couple wearing everything Bama -- the woman has teased hair, red boots, a prairie skirt, red jacket with Bama boutonnière, and an Alabama diamond watch. I resist the urge to play the fight song, helped by the fact that I have to turn off electronics for takeoff.

Morning

I looked at Mike this morning and said, "I'm probably too old to get away with saying, 'I'm going to the 'SHIP, baby,' aren't I?" Even though I already knew the answer, I was still slightly disappointed when he agreed with me.

In my student days, there were plenty of alums to giggle and roll our eyes at on football weekends. Lots of middle-aged men in plaid pants and ND logos who sometimes wanted to visit their old dorms. I wonder whether the alum stereotype has changed since then. Maybe now the students giggle at people like me, who would not be caught dead in plaid pants, but will be carrying around all the same gadgets they have and trying to act like we're still students.

 

 

 

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