Trapped in a Room with a Zombie

My crazy-wonderful husband who has a flair for the unique and the knack for the dramatic didn't just pick some random superhero movie off my Amazon wish list for Christmas, he meant to continue the theme of a "year of living dangerously" and pushing boundaries. In my stocking last December, I found a gift certificate to something called Trapped in a Room with a Zombie, for which I just had to set a date and invite 11 friends to solve all manner of clues and riddles to escape a room with a rabid zombie chained to the wall.  Um, what??? I was initially a bit horrified. Truth be told, zombies aren't my supernatural creature of choice. (That would be vampires.) So what the heck would this activity be like anyway?

We finally set the date, contacted our friends and booked the sitter. Then I started looking for reviews online just to make sure I had some idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I found myself growing more intrigued and delighted as I looked around and read feedback on this multi-city offering, it would challenge problem solving abilities and require team work with friends. That's a very good thing, I think, to put yourself (and friends) in safe but challenging situations. You feel surprisingly alive, like you might just be capable of anything. And not just capable of finding a missing Ravensburger puzzle piece under the couch or being able to assemble a dinner in 10 minutes with no planning. You know, big thinking.

One can do this Escape the Room activity with strangers if you sign up for an open, non-private party session but I loved that ours was with people we knew.  I announced to the group before we began, that all of us are parents (with kids ranging from 1-10 years old) so we all know how to multitask while a writhing uncooperative creature wails in the corner.  That's just 'Tuesday-morning-before-school' in my house. Oh really, is a zombie the best thing you got?  How about no sleep for 3 months with a beast that allows no other focus than itself and might as well be eating my brains because I couldn't remember a damn thing. But I digress.

We're sworn to secrecy not to reveal what the clues are like but suffice it to say, last Saturday's romp was very clever and fantastic challenge. In our group, self-named the 'Dirty Dozen', I was the first to fall to the Zombie as I took my focus off of her when looking around the room and misjudged how much chain length she had. We came very close to escaping the room though.  The best part was watching each of our friends find their niche and contribute to the effort. Some people are cool under pressure, some get a little more excitable. But best of all, we all got to do something out of the ordinary, making our tasty brains that much more full of juicy neural activity.

With a few more minutes, we would have succeeded in escaping the room. But only 30% are successful, so not great odds. They may change up to a whole new game with new clues and everything soon so we'll have to see if the 'Dirty Dozen' is up to the task again.

Until then, check it out yourself for some unconventional good times. Ugggggh. BRAINS!!

Bandwagon Solidarity: Come for the winning, stay for the civic pride

The wave of excitement leading up to the SuperBowl in this city was an incredible event to witness. The whole town coalesced on this one thing: "12" signs everywhere, people wearing jerseys, car flags aplenty, the skyline & the Space Needle lit up with green and blue and there was a noticeable spring in everyone's step.  Being in this city--being a part of this city--the past weeks has been nothing short of magical.  Seattlites can be ideologically diverse and standoffish but the anticipation, even if you weren't a football fan per se, was contagious. 

I've often said that I do respect and tip my hat to the true fans who put their heart and soul into following all the games, knowing the players' stats, riding the emotional roller coaster week after week, season after season--and not just when things start to go well in the playoffs. I am reverent enough to know that I don't get to call the Seahawks team "we"--as I have not earned it. Because I know what a dedicated sports fan looks like. It's in those bleak moments, sitting in the freezing a$$ cold in Pullman, year after year, cheering on a team who can't usually finish. And yet buying season tickets anyway and seeing the glimmers of hope for next year.  (I'm describing my dad, by the way, supporting the much maligned WSU Cougars.) Given my alma mater,  it's a strange feeling to even be tangentially aligned with such a winning, dominant team like the Seahawks.  I have to admit, I was swept up in the euphoria just like everyone else when they won the NFC Championship and when I saw Russell Wilson crying after the win, it made me cry as well.


Even kids really embrace it. Now having a kid in Kindergarten--the children at school really get into the spirit each week but especially this last Thursday, (since there was no school on Friday) they all had their gear on and made Seahawks hats and ate Skittles during their math game. 

Sidney's Class

Other schools made signs and got into "12" formations and put the photos on social media. It was phenomenal.

A North Seattle Elementary School shows their support.

The city united in it's excitement last week especially with that strange and uncommon feeling of optimism and defending a championship title. It culminated in our household by throwing our first ever SuperBowl watching party with the Bernhardts yesterday.  That has never happened in all of my 40 years.  

It's true, Ken made Jello shots.

But given how the game ended last night, in a freakish turn of the tide, it was only fitting that the entire city also banded together in its grief and disappointment. And strangely enough it was in that collective feeling of despair that I really felt a palpable camaraderie with my fellow Seattlites. I'm not sure why the more negative emotion makes that solidarity more real, but it did.  And while today everyone is moving on with their lives, last night I just wanted to throw my arms around this city and instead of saying, "It's just a game." I wanted to say "In our collective frustration we are one. Think of what we could do together.... So yeah, see you next playoff season."  

Superbowl Afterglow

How 'bout them apples? The city of Seattle is beside itself after the rare event that one of its teams not just won but dominated a world championship sporting contest.  Admittedly, it felt so righteous to be on the dishing side of a monumental walloping.  Most definitely I give homage to the true fans who live and breathe the ups and downs of the team and commit to it on a very deep level. I understand this commitment as seen through my grandpa and dad where the WSU Cougs are concerned.  As the years tick by, a connection to a team can sometimes become so engrained that you wonder if you ever had a choice in the matter.

However I can't begin to say how thankful I am to have married a man who does not devote his weekends to sports.  As if nothing could be more normal, like Joe Namath in a full length fur coat, my husband only starts taking an interest in Seahawks football during playoff time. It's at this point he also begins using the pronoun "we" when referring to the Seahawks team.  This is not a slight to him but more of an observation that he genuinely feels that inclusiveness. But from my vantage, we have not burned the hours in front of the TV or expended the emotional capital to earn that "we."

Because, once an emotional connection is made to a team, it is hard to go back.  It's why I can only stand to attend one live game of WSU's per season and why I only track their scores during other games or watch highlights after the fact.  I just can't take it.  A team like WSU carries some psychological baggage that foils it's own success and swagger at times.  I think it's human to relate to that and hope to one day prevail.  But I seriously get anxious watching their games.  The Seahawks though are a totally different story as evidenced by last night's lopsided score and just looking at the face of Peyton Manning.  The larger "drama" of the game keeps football interesting and NFL Films knows that.  They keep their fingers firmly affixed to the nostalgia button and emotion switch. Slow motion music swells, stuff like that.  NFL Films, quit making me feel things!

Don't get me wrong, I am happy for the devoted fans and for my town. It's nice. It's all anyone can talk about.  It's something that brings us together.  On several phone calls this past week to people I didn't know previously, the conversation ended with their valediction, "Go Hawks!" I mean, that's something. But I also feel a bit of a hypocrite when I reflect on how macho, violent and injurious the sport has become. I wish the players wouldn't hit so hard, I wish they wouldn't hurt each other so badly, and I wish the spectacle surrounding football didn't promote such a culture of boorishness.  It's nearly impossible to have it both ways: reveling in the victory yet having moral objections to the game itself. So I find myself of two minds and it's a weird place to be when the afterglow and civic pride is shining, for once, in Seattle.