Panic in the Sky with Chile Pie

The only people more sick to death of our wedding, besides Doyle and I, are our parents.  And probably you, by the end of this post.

D and I had our small wedding and reception in New York, so we could celebrate our nuptials OUR way, you know, hedonistically and with our bestest, most insane and funny friends and close family.  And it was fabulous.

BUT, we wanted our parents to be included in planning wedding fun, so we gave them the dubious honor of hosting separate wedding receptions for us in their neck of the woods.  You know, for their friends and our extended families.  Brilliant idea, right?  Except that this has turned into the cross-country Wedding That Won’t Die. 

Seriously.  This is, like, month 3 of celebrating our frickin’ blessed nuptials.

My folks threw a great shindig, complete with a COTTON CANDY MACHINE.  Because that’s how my mom rolls: Awesome. 

Our latest, and FINAL, leg of the undead wedding took place at Doyle’s parents’ house, outside of Alburqueque, New Mexico.  Doyle grew up there.  Being from New Mexico means a whole host of things that I will unpack for you someday, but for right now, all you need to know is that it is the home of the largest hot air balloon ascension in the known universe.  It is called The Balloon Fiesta, and it is a serious source of pride for New Mexicans, far and wide.

Naturally, my parents-in-law, in planning their lovely New Mexico wedding reception for us, planned it to coincide with the Balloon Fiesta.  Excellent idea.  Fun for the whole family.

And it was the Balloon Fiesta that gave my parents-in-law the idea for their wedding gift for us: a 30 minute ride in a hot air balloon.

SO COOL!  Lift up, hover and land, ala the Wizard of Oz.  Excellent!  Think of the view!  So of course I said yes.  I mean, who doesn’t want to ascend in a hot air balloon?

It was only when I told this plan to my mother and she turned to Doyle, smiling, and said “There will be pictures, right?” that I started thinking about the logistics of actually ascending in a hot air balloon.   Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.  Still, it couldn’t be THAT bad, right?  I have ridden in airplanes that could have doubled as port-a-potties, so this couldn’t be worse than that, right?

But then Librarian Gnome #1, who lives in and categorizes my brain, said in that annoying English accent of his, “Um, Jennifer, sorry to interrupt your thoughts, m’dear, but I have here your Definitive List of No-Nos, which includes Airplanes that are small enough to double as port-a-potties, Things made of wicker, Cheese made with the assistance of fly larvae, and Wooden roller coasters, to name a few." 

Fuck.

So, I did what I do best and completely ignored the balloon situation that I had agreed to.  Library Gnome #1 tucked it into the back of my brain, behind a book I made up when I was five, entitled “I am the Ballerina President of the USA”.

The balloon situation stayed there, all cozy and forgotten about, until Thursday night in New Mexico, when my sweet mother-in-law gave me a hug and asked if I was excited about tomorrow’s hot air balloon ride. 

Librarian Gnome #1 chuckled loudly in my head.  Asshole.

Jen’s Rules for Ascending in a Hot Air Balloon

Rule No. 1: 

Hot air balloon ascensions take place ass early in the morning.  Like, before 7 AM.  Before the coffee is awake.  But being coffee-less is a good thing, because you really won’t need the caffeine when the full dose of panic hits your blood stream.

Rule No. 2:  

No matter how desperately you want to, DO NOT read the thick packet of hazards and precautions in the release forms that the balloon carnies give you to sign.  Reading this packet will give you a heart attack before you ever get in the damn balloon.

Rule No. 3:  

Do not attempt to ascend in a hot air balloon if small spaces, wicker baskets, carnival folk, lack of seat belts or having to sit on combustible fuel tanks makes you uncomfortable.

Who the fuck are all these people?

This is my first thought upon arriving at the balloon ascension site.

We are standing in a neighborhood grade school soccer field FULL of children and their parents, and a flight crew of about 8 burly men in blue camouflage.  It is 6:30 in the goddamn morning.  Someone with a knack for entrepreneurship has set up an impromptu (and I imagine, unregulated) burrito and coffee stand to appease the hungry crowd.  

I thought it was just going to be us in a field.  Alone.  Quietly blowing up our hot air balloon.  Apparently not.  Our balloonist decided to advertise this ascension as the beginning of the balloon festival, and the Albuquerque Department of Education sent out an invitation to every parent and student in the state to attend.

I shit you not. There have to be two hundred people standing around.  Plus me, my confused-looking husband, and about 7 members of his family who I have just only recently met, but who already know me well enough to ask my husband why I’m being so quiet.

Why am I being quiet?  BECAUSE I AM TOTALLY TERRIFIED AND APPALLED AT MYSELF.

First, there’s the basket, which has just been unloaded from the trailer.  It is wicker (No-No list, whispers the asshole Gnome) and the floor is made of a sheet of plywood.  PLYWOOD. Plus, my lying, lying soon to be ex-husband told me the basket would be large “about 8’x8’, you know, a reasonable size”.  Plenty of room to crumple should I pass out. 

But THAT fucking wicker basket was maybe, MAYBE, 3’ by 3’.  Just big enough for three people, standing upright, to learn the texture of each other’s pants real well. 

I just stood there watching the blue carnies unfold the balloon on the field, silent and white as a French mime.  I hate mimes.

My concerned husband, probably at the urging of his family, cautiously approached me.  After a few seconds of considerately pondering what to say, he chose the neutral, “Are you going to be ok?”  Me, full of bravado, despite the sweat dripping off my ass, managed the worst fake smile in the history of fake smiles and said “Sure.”

As I utter this word filled with lies and deception, the first flare occurs.  The flare is the fire part of the hot air balloon.  I can only describe the roar of it as what I always imagined a dragon belching fire sounds like. 

Damn unsavory timing. 

I hear the bellowing roar, feel the heat against my face and I immediately want to throw up all over myself.  But, I resist the urge and settle for screaming like a little girl.  Except that I am surrounded by little girls, NONE of whom are screaming.  They are eating burritos and smiling and looking at me as if I have spontaneously grown a pair of antlers. 

When the balloon carnie hands D and I the release forms to sign, my horror reaches the apex. 

Here’s a sampling from the horror packet:

Assumption of Risk.  Passenger is aware that Ballooning is a hazardous activity, and that Passenger is voluntarily participating in it with full knowledge of the dangers involved. 

Um, no I don’t have full knowledge of the dangers.  Oh, wait.  They’re listed on the second page, the RULES TO OBEY OR YOU WILL DIE BALLOONING Page:

Handles are along the edge of the basket and on the fuel tanks.

Um, wouldn’t you consider that a design flaw?

Helmets are optional, if you want one.

Will that really help me if I fall a thousand feet?

Brace yourself for the landing by holding very tightly to the superstructure and try to keep your weight off the other passengers.

How is that even possible when we are pressed tighter together than Christina Hendrick’s boobs?

Power Line Contact Landing. The basket will be energized.  Upon evacuation, jump clear of the basket by sitting on the side of the basket and jumping to the ground, avoiding touching the balloon system and the ground at the same time.  When the pilot instructs you, “bunny hop” with both feet touching ground at the dame time until you are at least 20 feet from the balloon, 40 if the ground is wet.

Excuse me?  I don’t even know where to begin with the wrongness of this whole scenario.

Now here is the stupid part.  I SIGNED THE PAPERS.  Why?  Because I am the world’s BIGGEST asshole.  And because part of me believed that somehow the gods would smite the balloon with a lightening bolt or rain of locusts before I even got in the basket, thereby rending the entire experience moot. 

But I signed the damned papers, so if my life ended up as a single headline “Stupid girl in Hot Air Balloon Dies because she was Stupid and in a Hot Air Balloon” it will totally have been my own fault.

I see my mother-in-law standing there, looking so excited and hopeful.  Who knows how much she and her husband shelled out to give this magical experience to us?  If she were anyone else, I would suspect Monster-in-law type shenanigans where once the balloon reaches 1,000 I get pushed out and end up a human pancake, but I know for a fact that she wants more grandchildren, and that can’t happen if my loins are dead, so this can’t be a murder attempt.  This is her being sweet and motherly and wanting to do something special for us. 

And I just know I’m going to ruin this magical experience by throwing up, crapping my pants and probably getting the death.  Nobody wants the death.

I smile weakly, give her a hug and excuse myself to go around to the other side of the trailer for some quality time with my head between my knees.

My poor husband accompanies me, mostly because I still have his sleeve trapped in my claw of steel.  He looks at my pasty, sweating face and makes a valiant effort to try to talk me down from the crazy vomit train. 

He hugs me and says sweetly, slowly, as if I had turned into a rabid dog eyeballing his testicles, “Iiiiii dooooon’t knooooow hooooow tooooo heeeeeelp yoooooou.”  At least, that’s how it sounded when it penetrated my ears.  My suggestion of punching everyone in the field, stealing a car and fleeing to Mexico was frowned upon.

After pacing around, watching the balloon slowly raise into the air, I came to grips with the fact that I am breathing my last half hour of oxygen, so I called my mother to say goodbye.  She was at the gym, naturally, so I left her this message:

“Mom, this is your daughter who is about to go up in a hot air balloon where she will probably crap her pants and die in front of 200 grade school children.  I love you.  Goodbye.”

I was grieving for my soon-to-be-ended life.  I must have been in stage two, because without warning I passed right into the third stage.  I got angry.  Really angry.  Blind ragingly angry with Judy Garland, of all people. 

I know.  It makes no sense.  It is completely irrational.  But all I could think was: Fuck you, Dorothy Gail!  Fuck you and your little dog for looking so poised and blasé when getting into that hot air balloon at the end of The Wizard of OZ.  If you weren’t dead, I would punch you in the face SO HARD.

As I am chewing on my rage, a blue camouflaged person runs up to me and yells over the hoopla, “You have to go now!  NOW!” and before I know it I am in the basket, bracing for take off and hissing at Doyle, who is smothered between me and the pilot, “Do NOT touch me.”

I feel the balloon begin to sway, so I close my eyes as the bile begins to rise.  I say a final prayer to a god I don’t believe exists, and when I’m sure we’ve reached a thousand feet I open my eyes and I see

Nothing. 

We haven’t taken off.  We haven’t moved an inch.  We’re just standing there, in a basket on the ground, with a huge red, white and blue balloon over our heads, while dozens of children run up to us to HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN WITH US.  This is why I was hurried into the basket?  So dozens of people can have their very own photo of my death mask with their children?  This must be how the kids in the Hunger Games felt. 

For some unknown and stupid reason, I’m trying to be brave for the kids, grinning and waving like an idiot when my ears tune in to the voice of the 7 year old who has positioned himself at the rim of the basket, asking our pilot excellent questions, such as: “So what happens when the balloon catches on fire?  What happens when the fuel tanks explode?”

Through my tightly clenched smile, I sing-songingly whisper at the child, “Kid. You are not helping.  Can’t you say something positive?”  So the pint-sized Satan looks me square in the eye and says, “Well, when you burn up, it’ll be colorful.”

I push the kid off of the basket, and feeling a bit light headed I tell the pilot, “I have to sit down now.”

“Sure,” he smiles through silver sideburns, “ You can sit here, on the fuel tank.”

Gee.  Thanks. 

When we finally lifted off, the children went nuts and started chasing our ascending balloon, screaming and chanting.  “What are they saying?” I asked my husband.  Through the most painful grin I’ve ever seen, he says as soothingly as possible, “They’re saying…’You’re gonna die, you’re gonna die’”.

I hate children.

I kept my eyes open for the lift off.  It felt like nothing.  We may as well have been standing on the ground.  We traveled slowly, cautiously, and lower to the earth than I would have considered safe.  There was a lot of near-motionless hovering above people’s homes.  I began to feel like the least clever and most obvious voyeur in the universe.  We could see people’s bald spots, the cream in their coffee and their china pattern from where we stood in our wicker and plywood viewing box.  We had to wave at, like, 30 people while dogs bayed at us from their back yards.

The weather was very calm, and warm and sunshiny.  The basket barely moved.  We didn’t travel high enough to get a strong current pushing us in one direction or the other.  It was peaceful.  Quiet.  Beautiful.  We could look out and see for miles.

After about ten minutes the panic finally began to drain from me and was replaced by calmness.  Then leg achiness.  Then boredom.

To alleviate the boredom, Doyle tried to make chit chat with the pilot about the instruments, the weather, blah blah, all the while rubbing my back as I stood there with my blue fingers twisted tightly in the safety handles (just in case).

“So, you ah, do this professionally?” asked D.

“Nope.  I’m in air conditioning,” smiled the silver sideburns.

And that was the end of me listening to their conversation.

We hovered for another few minutes, and then all of a sudden it was time to land, and THAT WAS IT.

So, the moral of the story is: I’m an asshole. 

I decided to do this thing of my own volition without thinking, so I had no right to freak out or complain about it.  So, I vagged up and did it.  And it was very interesting.  Maybe one of the most interesting things I’ve done.  I’m glad I did it, but once is probably enough for me.

Put that into your book and suck it, Librarian Gnome #1.

In honor of my new New Mexican family and their iconic state vegetable (though technically it is a fruit, I believe), the New Mexico chile pepper, I offer you this New Mexican Panic Pie because, hey, if you can’t die in the sky, at least this pie can give you the death by way of a heart attack.  Enjoy.

Panic in the Sky with Chile Pie

INGREDIENTS

Pie crust (I like the frozen kind, already in the tin pie plate)

3 eggs

1 ½ cup of cream (Can substitute half and half or milk, but you will reduce the joy)

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp white pepper

1 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese, or whatever floats your balloon

½ cup of New Mexico green chile peppers (roasted, peeled and seeded, and chopped)*

*As New Mexico chiles are hard to find outside of New Mexico, you can use Ancho chiles instead, though that would be traitorous in the mind of any right thinking New Mexican.

Heat the oven to 375°F.  Defrost the pie crust and poke some holes in the bottom of it with a fork.  Sprinkle the cheese onto the crust and top with the green chiles.

Whisk together the eggs, cream, salt and pepper, and pour into the crust.

Bake for 45 – 60 minutes till the top is a nice golden color, with a bit of brown on the edges.

Cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.  Best not eaten in a hot air balloon.