Come on and JUMP!

Saturday afternoon, sitting on my fantastic patio with Lincoln. I am sure that Maxie will follow shortly. I worked a good Saturday at Souper Jenny, but I have to say that I am still recovering from yesterday's excitement.

I arrived at the shop yesterday around 8:45AM and did some last minute cleaning of my car. I got a good car wash on Thursday, but needed to move some bins to the trunk. Since there were 7 of us we needed to take 2 cars and I offered mine. When I walked inside, everyone was wearing very fun sunglasses and bagels and hamantashen were out on the table. Jen asked if I wanted a bagel and I said, "absolutely not!" There was no way I was going to eat anything -- especially if we were going skydiving. A few minutes later Jen gave me a birthday card and my assumptions were confirmed. We were talking a little trip up 75 to The Georgia Skydiving Center.

The funny thing is I was not nervous AT ALL. I was very excited and thought that if there was one way to enjoy this whole throwing yourself out of a plane business, it was having loving friends cheering every step of the way. The biggest shocker is that the only person from the shop joining me in the jump was Rachel Miller. Marcie really wanted to but since she's in a show and rehearsing for 2, she took the responsible route. As she said later in the day, no one really wants Ann Carol Pence screaming at you if there was a minor accident. Nevin also wanted to go, but for some reasons around the purchase of his house and his wife's apprehension, he decided to pass THIS TIME! Jenny, Aimee and Jessica were also in tow, and were very adamant about hanging out on the patio out back and leading the cheering section. They had absolutely no desire to make the jump.

After we watched a short video with a dude straight out of ZZ Top explaining the legal jargon, Rachel and I signed our lives away and headed to the back deck to wait our turn. We watched the first group walk to the plane and then heard the plane above and searched the sky for the parachutes. The landings were incredible. The experienced jumpers came down first and did these uber fast, very impressive landings. There was one guy who went a little out of control and almost crashed into the cars in the parking lot. The other guys on the ground said things similar to "dude, that's not good." Then the photographers came down with video cameras on their heads, shortly followed by the tandem jumpers. Each of those pairs slid on their asses. The first guy in yellow just didn't get up. His instructor gathered up the parachute and just LEFT HIM in the field. I thought, "how rude is that!" until I heard the instructor muttering something about the guy throwing up on him as he walked back inside. I told my mother this yesterday and she could not stop laughing.

Soon after we started getting our "calls" over the PA system. "Jump 2 will be leaving in 20 minutes." I almost instinctively said, "thank you 20," but I think I started getting some nervous energy. When our time finally came I walked inside with my little red purse and my instructor, Chuck called my name and said "stand there." So I just stopped where I was and handed off my purse to someone -- Aimee maybe? Heck if I remember. But all of a sudden I realized I should probably go to the bathroom one more time. In the bathroom were signs for The Jumping 4 Jesus Cafe, which would have certainly made me laugh out loud in different circumstances. When I came out of the bathroom I walked over to Chuck who put me in my harness. And that was it. No instruction, no nothing, he just said we would be leaving in a few minutes.

Running around in my harness (nervous energy again, folks) I walked over to Rachel and her dude, Noah who was giving her a bit more instruction. They walked through the position for exiting the plane. Kinda nice to hear, don'tcha think?!!?? I am glad I saw that, but when the time came, I am not sure I followed those directions anyway.

It was finally time to head out to the plane and I followed Chuck and my fancy photographer/videographer, Jessica started the interview process. I was SKIPPING and being pretty silly (um, more nervous energy) and I may have gotten a bit more instruction, but again my guy was not the most communicative. Not that I really cared because I probably would have just intellectualized it anyway.

We took off without major fanfare. Rachel was nervous to look out the door, but surprisingly enough it did not bother me. The photo above is just before I was strapped to Chuck. We were attached at each shoulder and each hip.

Two experienced jumpers got out at an earlier altitude. They literally tossed themselves from the plane. This was the moment it started to click that this was really happening and I would soon be flinging myself out of an airplane.

And then we increased our altitude. Rachel and I, plus Chuck and Noah climbed to 14,000 feet. Yup, 14,000 feet. No joke people! Every so often I glanced at Chuck's altitude gauge that was around his wrist. He gave me a play by play, even though I really didn't want to hear it. We were soon connected and Chuck pretty much lifted me up and scooted me on my butt to the front of the bench by the door. Before I knew it Jessica was out of the plane and Chuck and I were squatting by the door. It all happened so fast -- too fast for me to recognize what was really happening. That's probably a good thing.

This is the first picture out of the plane. If you can see my face -- it's the only shot that shows pure terror. It's that feeling you get at the top of a rollercoaster right as you are ready to drop. For this split second, the only thing that went through my head was what a mistake I made. I couldn't believe how stupid I was and hoped there was a way for me to get back in the plane that instant! I quickly realized that there was only going to be 40-60 seconds of this freefall and I would never again experience anything like it. I should figure out some way to enjoy it. Chuck tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up and Jessica was right in front of us snapping away. She quickly moved UNDERNEATH us and then the posing began. The coolest thing is she was snapping the photos with a plunger in her MOUTH! Freefall did feel like forever and if I did have the brainspace to even think about the video archiving I probably could have come up with more interesting poses.

Jessica tried to get me to hold her hand at one point and in the video you see me shaking my head "no." As you can see Chuck was checking the altitude. Without warning, however he pulled the parachute cord and we went flying UP. It was a quick jerk and a bit frightening. I immediately held on to the harness, and apparently I had my hands up too high and Chuck asked me to move them down for fear of interfering with his controls -- um, whatever! Here comes the only potentially sexual moment of the day. Chuck then reached around me and as he said, "loosened my harness for comfort." As I told this part of the story this morning to Aimee and Eric -- Geoff Melkonian stopped delivering his Breadwinner Breads and started playing porn music on his air guitar. It was comical, but not really accurate accompaniment.

When the parachute fully opened, all of a sudden it was so quiet and calm. The chill I felt falling to my death was gone. Noah and Chuck joked in the plane about the feeling of going freefall. When Rachel asked what it would be like Noah started by saying it was very loud and your ears would be bleeding by the time we got to the ground. Rachel in her nervousness quickly replied, "really?" and they said no and went into a more plausible story of saying it was just like the sound of sticking your head out of a moving car. And I added, "except not really." Then they kept this one going by adding the differences in speed and direction. I could see Rachel getting a bit more uncomfortable. She decided to practice her exit position, for good measure.

The ease of drifting down towards the Earth was interrupted by Chuck doing these spins around and around which would have gotten me a little dizzy if we were at an amusement park. I think my adreneline got me through that one. Chuck told me to look up and I promptly said no. He requested again and asked if I would like to see what the parachute looked like open. I did finally look up and saw this wide expanse of purple and green in the shining sun. It was beautiful, the scenery was amazing and I couldn't believe that I actually went through with it. Chuck pointed to our mark and I realized that we would soon be on the ground. This was the perfect time for Chuck to mention the landing. Um, yeah, I guess this is as good a time as any! He told me to lift my knees and wait for the instruction upon landing. He also said that we would be sliding in on our butts. And my immediate response was "no way!" There was no way that I was going to slide in on my ass. I saw the other tandem teams do it and it looked so clumsy. The solo jumpers elegantly ran in and I at least wanted to walk. Chuck said that the butt way was the traditional way of doing it, but to follow his lead and if we could walk in that would be bonus. He also mentioned that it may seem that we would be coming in very fast, but I needed to trust him. "Dude, I trust you with my life," I promptly responded. As we approached the field I heard the crowd from Souper Jenny (Jenny, Marcie, Nevin, Aimee and Jessica) cheering and jumping up and down on the patio. The photographer Jessica was already down and filming our glorious landing. As you can see I waited until Chuck's feet were down until I put mine down. A very elegant landing, indeed.

After watching Rachel come in and running over to her -- and quite a series of high fives, I joined the group and (there's no other way to say this) verbally vomited the experience to the group. We finally went inside and I gave the harness back to Chuck where he immediately placed it on some guy in the third group. We waited about 20 minutes for our photos and videos and as I was coming down from this amazing high, I started getting very nauseated. I had not eaten anything and I only had about 4 oz. of water. At the gas station on the way back to Atlanta, Aimee gave me a dramamine and I was pretty out of it for the rest of the day.

We stopped at the shop and had lunch on the patio and watched the parade of people coming up to the door and realizing we were closed for the day.

Upon arrival at home I took a nap on the couch and once I woke responded to birthday calls from Sandra Benton and Erin Haas. I spoke to my parents and my brother and started emailing pictures of the adventure. I also posted a pic on the secrethideout. I was in bed reading Dreamland by Kevin Baker by 10:30PM. I heard my phone ring around midnight. Rachel and Daniel May had called and were the last ones of the day to sing a lovely rendition of Happy Birthday.

I cannot thank Jenny enough for her amazing generosity and Marcie for her careful and diligent planning skills -- as well as the rest of the gang and quite a few customers who supported the adventure.

I wonder when I am going to swim with the dolphins...