(no subject)

[stormdog]

I'm back home. In fact, I'm back home right now, even though I'm supposed, in theory, to be at work today. For my feelings on my current state of health, see serinthia's entry from today. But I am feeling a little better today, after sleeping 'till noon. My throat was getting really painful through Sunday and on my way home, but now it's just a little... clogged.

It was a really great weekend. I arrived Thurdsay afternoon, after a peaceful and amazingly low traffic drive, at wooisme's place of work. I got to see the inside of it briefly as she finished her tasks for the day, and learned that the trade exchange she works at has a pretty grandiose website for a company quartered in a back building at a strip mall. I got interesting looks from some of her co-workers too. Heh.

We left shortly for our accomodations for the next three days, a quiet combination motel and bowling alley (I never did hear any noise from it) which might be described as pleasantly non-descript. We unpacked our cars, and I presented her with the iron pentacle that was the result of my toil at the forge a week prior. I'm glad she liked it. I love seeing my dear one smile. I still intend to make a slightly fancier one someday, when I have time and opportunity to practice.

The order of our activities becomes somewhat fuzzy. We ate at one of the best pizza places I've ever been to, Como's. If you haven't had pizza with fresh garlic and bleu cheese, you are really missing something. We explored Detroit for a time, seeing the profusion of huge derelict structures. Churches, hotels, libraries... so many really beautiful and historic places left to crumble. I'm finding the feel of Detroit to be very mysterious, sometimes almost mythic. Speaking of mysterious and mythic, we visited John K King Used and Rare Books. Andrea and I parked in the lot outside the old glove factory that houses this treasure and as we walked to the front door she pointed out the smell in the air. There are so many old books filling the structure that was beside us that the musty old book smell of time and history was easily detectable, even out in the parking lot. Then we went inside, where I was simply overawed. Though we arrived in the evening and soon had to leave, I can see myself spending at least half a day in there, just browsing through the rooms and aisles of books on any and every subject imaginable.

As we left the store with a few of our purchases, we found that Andrea's car had once again developed a flat tire. Fortunately, due to this having happened once before, all the necessary accoutrements for changing it were in easy reach, and I swapped the spare on in the course of a few minutes. The first time it went flat was a different story though. We were driving north along the coast, toward interesting old tourist traps from days gone by, when we stopped at a Salvation Army store. While we were inside, the tire went flat. I was a little worried, but as we dug through the trunk, filling up the backseat with it's displaced contents, we did manage to find a spare tire and everything necessary to install it. So, off to the side of the lot, among the bags on the ground that hadn't fit back in the car, I jacked the vehicle up, removed the lug nuts, and found myself unable to convince the tire to come off. Stymied, Andrea finally tried calling Darren to see if he knew anything about the problem. His advice; 'kick it'. In the midst of my car-rocking attempts to jerk the tire off the car, pry it off with the tire iron, and, yes, kick it, the heaviest rain storm of the weekend rolled in. We quickly jammed everything in the car and took shelter under the overhang of the strip mall (there are a lot of those in Detroit it seems), where Andrea called AAA. We spent around half an hour sitting on the sidewalk, watching the storm deluge the neighborhood, leaning against each other, and talking. Though it may sound odd, I thought it was, overall, a pleasant experience. I love watching the rain, and with my dear one there to watch with me it was really very peaceful and soothing. Finally the guy from AAA showed up. He looked at the car, gave the tire a good hard kick, and it popped right off. Heh. Guess I should have kicked it harder, but I thought I was going to knock the car off the jack. Anyway, I now know a little more about cars than I did before and I can't complain about that, especially when the knowledge gained served me so well outside John K King when I had to do it again. We had gotten the tire reparied, but Belle Tire apparently failed to notice the sizable gash in the sidewall. *shrug* I am definately not impressed by Belle Tire.

We spent Friday evening and night at the house of a couple of Andrea's friends, Brad and Paula. It was a good time spent playing a game, eating ice cream, and cuddling in the dark by a bonfire and watching fireworks. Brad and Paula's daughter gave Andrea a daisy, which she then tucked into my hair. I had a flower in my hair! And my beloved gave it to me! *bounce* I do wish my throat hadn't been too sore to sit very near the fire, but being outside with my beloved on a beautiful summer night, sitting and talking, was so very wonderful.

We finally said goodbye Sunday afternoon, in the parking lot of the motel. Only a two week absence this time. I'll be going to Michigan again for the Silverleaf ren faire, and then Andrea will be here in another two weeks for the Bristol ren faire. The theme at Silverleaf that week will be pirate oriented she tells me. I'm looking forward to seeing Andrea in her role as the 'Morale Officer' of the Scarlet Harlot. *grin*