It was an unexpected day. I want to write about it but I'm falling over. I got stuck in Atlanta. We had to evacuate as there was an electrical grid outage. Long walk out through dark corridors all the way to baggage claim, must've been a mile walking through dark terminals filled with electrical smoke. Surreal. People having panic attacks. One person had a seizure. 

But then, amidst the chaos, in this one corridor, there was this beautiful art from Zimbabwe, stone sculptures, and I had stop and look. I couldn't not. I thought, if this hadn't happened I would have never seen this art, nor would it have meant as much.

Finally got out of airport and into a hotel shuttle. We all got to talking in the van and I mentioned that I was going to miss my grandmother's funeral and there were warm sounds of sympathy all around. Then a grandmother said that she was going to miss her granddaughter's birth and that felt like poetic symmetry. Soon afterward this same woman had a kind of belated panic attack, laughing and crying uncontrollably and taking off her clothes. We rolled down the windows and she calmed down. After a long silence one of the men asked her if she was OK. She said she was fine now and he told her a story about how he was in the elevator with his grandmother when he was young and the elevator got stuck and she panicked and began to take off her clothes. So he said he'd been there before and he was cool with it. She said that was good to know.

Later in hotel I watched a very intense and surprising documentary about peyote on Viceland, then flipped to an old Perry Como Christmas special, with special guest stars The Carpenters. The special was my grandma's choice. Anyway, I kept feeling like my grandma was there watching it with me. Peggy Fleming came out spinning on the ice in a diaphanous white dress, a winter fantasia, and she was -resplendent- I could see why Charles Schultz always talked about her in Peanuts. Good choice, Grandma.

Afterward I walked down to the only restaurant around, Ruby Tuesdays, and they were so overwhelmed with unexpected customers that it took a couple hours to get seated and served. 

Meanwhile I danced on the scary path next to the restaurant. See pictures before and after below. 

Still waiting, I made a sculpture out of the lawn art at Ruby Tuesday's. Again again. The security guard came out and frantically told me to stop. I said, sorry I wasn't thinking. Ha ha ha ha. 

The salad bar was great and they kept bringing around free margarita shots so it was all good. Plus there was the live version of "a Christmas story" on TV. It was laughably bad, though Maya Rudolph almost saves it. 

I was seated in the singles section and we all ended up sharing stories about the night. Lots of cathartic laughter all around.