The Trash Pandas*

In an effort to be social with more than just the Church of Christ ladies, I dragged Marty to a "spaghetti" dinner and trivia event at our church Saturday night. And to be fair, Marty was a good sport, given he had made the Dallas run that day to restock on peanut butter and coffee. 

Polly is well-known at the church because of her affiliation with the choir. Somehow, word has gotten around that Polly's mom is at home and has nothing to do during the day. Therefore, every member of the woman's auxiliary--who were running the event--came up to me during the dinner to introduce themselves and invite me to next Thursday's meeting. As for me, I am 100 percent on board with joining if I can be in charge of the food, ensuring nobody again is forced to eat spaghetti, combined with--and I'm not making this up--Rotel, cream of chicken soup, rotisserie chicken and covered with velveta then baked until gross. 

Anyway, the trivia event was to raise money for a woman's shelter somewhere in the area. Every table was it's own team. After we got our food, we were joined by Joey, who is thinking about being a priest, which is really too bad. The Catholic Mother in me sees that he and Polly would have hit it off. We were also joined by Father, our church's pastor. I had no idea Father knew Polly was our daughter. He told Joey what a beautiful voice Polly had. 

Father is a hoot. He suggested our team's name of the "Trash Pandas." Most teams picked names like "Saints," or "Holy Rollers" (this was a church event, after all). Nope. We were the Trash Pandas. And let me tell you, We Trash Pandas did really well. We didn't win the final pot--who knew Mount Mitchell was in North Carolina? But we held our own, and landed in 4th place out of 16 teams. The top four teams all had one point differences. 

I don't see me giving up the Church of Christ gang any time soon, but it is nice to expand my horizons. 

*It turns out a "trash panda" is a racoon. I don't know if this is a southern phrase or not. I'd never heard it before Saturday night.