Michigan is Weird

I'm just back from my trip to Michigan. It was weird, jumping back into my old life with my friends, my family, and my former workmates.

I've only been away for 7 months, and I didn't expect to feel too "fish out of water", but maybe it was like being a fish in a different kind of water.

The first thing I noticed after my dear friend Katie picked me up from the airport was the proper summer weather. Ah, Michigan August humidity! I remember you!

The second thing I noticed is how spread out everything is. There's so much room between things! And you have to drive everywhere!

Saturday morning I met Grant at his apartment and we went to my friend Lindsay's wedding together. It was a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding and everyone was happy and beautiful. Lindsay and Joachim were married by their friend Luke, who Lindsay had ordained on the internet. My first internet-ordained-officiated wedding.

Katie and I spent the rest of the afternoon kicking around Ann Arbor with Grant. It seemed that half the stores I was looking for were long gone. Places that I thought were Ann Arbor classics and would never leave.

For dinner we ate on a sidewalk terrasse, watching the sun set over the Fleetwood Diner. At least the Fleetwood will always be there.

That night I stayed with Katie at her boyfriend Rob's house outside of Ann Arbor. We stayed up way too late watching Scrubs on DVD and working on an art project. Just like the good old days.

Sunday afternoon I spent with Dave's parents. I caught up on all the home improvements, garden developments, and birds' nests that I'd missed since I'd been gone.

My parents were on the other side of Ann Arbor watching my brother's ultimate frisbee game. We were all supposed to meet for dinner at 6:00, but at 5:30 Grant called and said that they wouldn't make it, he had hurt his arm and they were heading to the hospital.

So I had dinner with Roch and Sue and Katie, then spent the rest of the evening with my parents in the waiting room of the hospital. Grant had broken the radius of his right arm, and finally emerged at 10:30 with a splint, a sling, and pumped full of morphine. "The last point of the last game of the season" he said, shaking his head. "I dove. It would have been great".

Back at Grant's apartment, my parents settled him in while I stood on the balcony making phone calls. That's when I saw the biggest, brightest shooting star I've ever seen. Pretty neat.

Kate and I were supposed to head back to her house in Royal Oak, but by the time I recovered from the drama I was not in the mood to pack up and leave yet. So we spent the night at Rob's place again and left early the next day.

We spent Monday afternoon shopping (ah...just like the good old days), then lunch at our favorite sushi spot. I know the food in Paris is supposed to be better, but I still haven't found sushi I like as much as home.

When the evening rolled around we met a few more friends for the Tigers game. The Tigers lost pretty badly, but I barely noticed, yammering to all of my friends and thrilling over peanuts and hot dogs, rally caps and the 7th inning stretch.
After the game we spent an unwanted extra hour in downtown Detroit waiting for a tow truck to show up after we learned that the keys had been locked in Katie's Jeep. If you've never spent an unwanted hour in downtown Detroit at dark, I don't recommend it.

On Tuesday, Katie went to work and I ran some banking errands. Katie left me the keys to her Jeep, which she might have done if she known how awkward I felt about driving such a large vehicle with an automatic transmission.

At lunchtime I met Kate and our friend Virginia for lunch, then ran to Meijer to pick up some things to take back: Wheat Thins, chocolate chips, and some candy requests from colleagues.

Meijer was weird. Firstly, a cart guy tried to direct me to a closer parking spot. I'd only seen homeless people do that before for tips.

And it was probably the jetlag (which I never fully recovered from) or the summer cold I had picked up from my brother, but the smell of Meijer made me sick. I walked down the candy and granola bar aisle and the sickingly sweet smell made my stomach turn. Have I become a preservative-free snob?

After Meijer I dropped by the office in Auburn Hills to kick around with my old group for a little while. That was also a little weird, having to sneak into the office and not knowing some of the new team.

Before my flight, Katie drove me to Ann Arbor to see my brother again. We took him to dinner in Kerrytown and he told us that the hospital had called. They had re-evaluated his x-ray and wanted him to come back to have pins implanted. Katie and I squirmed and begged him to not talk about it anymore, then asked questions like "So what does it sound like when your arm breaks"?

Finally we and I took him to the hospital to fetch his x-ray for another doctor and dropped him off at his apartment again. Then off to the airport and back on a plane bound for Europe. But not before stopping at 7-11 for last minute slurpees. Just like the good old days.

Have I really been gone so long that they're already "old"??