Ben lowered his head and was right on my heels in the dark as we took cover behind a neon-outlined wall near the yellow base. He looked terrified.  I peered around the corner and pointed directions to him with two fingers like they do in combat films. "Stay down," I mouthed. "I'm going out there."

 A 6-year-old girl was approaching slowly - crouching low and walking sideways with her gun raised steady above her shoulders. She was using "alpha, bravo, Charlie" phonetics and switching from English to French and this frightened me.  She was trouble.

In the near pitch-black labyrinth that is laser tag, I had no clue of Charlie's whereabouts. I didn't think of it at the time, but a severe hypoglycemic event would be very bad in this setting; especially it being his birthday party.

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Several times a year, our social calendar involves an event in which each of us is expected to contribute food to be shared by all. In some parts of the US, this is known as a "covered dish dinner"; in ours, it's called "pot luck". Depending on the event and the organizer, there will be greater and lesser degrees of coordination regarding courses, types of dishes, and quantities to be contributed -- let's face it, unless it's a same-dish/recipe cook-off, even folk without diabetes would rather have more selection than five different pans of mac 'n' cheese, two different types of fried chicken, and twenty apple pies. When you add diabetes, food allergies, and other dietary restrictions into the mix, planning for success can get a bit rough.

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I took Charlie to a party on Saturday. It was in a large, old church hall with high wooden rafters and lots of wide-open space. When we opened the door, Charlie sprinted like a racehorse out of the gate, joining his friends who were busy whipping rubber balls at each other's heads at high velocity.

We had already discussed that we were going to pass on the pizza and Charlie was cool with that. Although many college students (and my high school humanities teacher) would be of a different opinion, Charlie does not like being high all night.

Charlie has an interesting way of describing things. He tends to invent his own words that end in "er." For example, for a party like this one, he would typically wonder if there was going to be a "jumper" there. Translation - a trampoline.

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lisascenic

Diabetes is sometimes the best way to get out of things. It really can be an easy excuse in times of "emergency (parties, dates, movie hunger)." (READ MORE)