Saturday, January 18, 2020
Okay, so maybe the monsters is us. Brugger and me, that is. Since she and I have celebrated Christmas down south every year that we've been together, it has become tradition to have a late holiday celebration with her folks in Michigan in January. So, early this morning, we set out for Midland via United Airlines, by way of Chicago and then Flint. (No, we did not drink the water.) Coffee. I drank coffee. I will say the coffee on our United flight was somewhat superior to the coffee I've had on Delta, which has typically been our Michigan-bound airline, and shit tons better than the coffee on American and British Airways, which carried us back and forth on our relatively recent European outing. And United gave us Star Wars napkins. You seriously can't go wrong when you've got Star Wars napkins.
To my surprise — because I had not looked in advance — there is a virtual geocache inside Chicago's O'Hare Airport. It lay no more than half a mile from our gate, and since we had about a 30-minute layover, I figured I could hoof it to GZ, claim the virtual, and get back before our nice little Canadair CRJ550 left without me. Happily, I made it to the cache and back with almost fifteen minutes to spare. And so, I added another Illinois cache to my tally to start the day right. Ms. B. and I are hoping to visit Chicago and see a bunch of my old friends sometime later this year. I'm sure I'll get a few more Illinois caches under my belt then.
Del & Fern met us in Flint, and from there we drove the hour or so to Casa di Brugger in Midland. Also tradition is for Fern to prepare for us her famous kielbasa-vegetable soup and patented sandwich spread, which filled us up all nice and proper. We made the rest of the afternoon and evening pretty mellow. A shopping trip for provisions, and then a relaxing evening in the downstairs den with wine and TV.
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| Ms. B. and Old Dude, frigid at the Tridge |
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| Old Rodan geocaching with an odd couple |
Some of us got up pretty early; had a decent breakfast, with nonstop coffee; and spent a good portion of the day working on his latest Ameri-Scares novel, which is coming into the final stretch. Somebody else (ahem... Kimberly) might have slept in very late. Later, Del brought us in a fine feast from China Palace. Then, Ms. B. and I headed out to do some geocaching in the snow. My main target was a relatively new virtual called "The Tridge" (GC88Z72) at....the Tridge, a three-span footbridge over the Tittabawassee and Chippewa rivers in downtown Midland. Why, yes, it was freezing cold out there. They grow the snow deep here. Yeppers, when I was an old dude, I used to go geocaching in the snow... uphill, both ways... with no shoes....
I picked up a few other park & grab caches, and tried for a couple of "non-winter-friendly" caches — which generally means they're on the ground and liable to be covered with snow. Indeed, the "non-winter-friendly" label applied in no uncertain terms.
From there, we fit in a bit of necessary shopping and went for coffee at a nice little shop near downtown called Live Oak. Ms. B. loved the Vanilla Latte, and I had a very good Chai. Back at Casa di Brugger, we scavenged dinner for ourselves and once again spent a mellow evening at home with the folks. Nice.
Enjoying hot drinks at Live Oak Coffee Shop after some mighty cold
geocaching
Once again, the older of this monstrous pair rose relatively early and, after a spot of breakfast and coffee, set right to making forward progress on Ohio: Fear the Grassman! Apparently, the comfy chair and Ottoman in the Bruggers' basement is the place in the world most conducive to writing stuff. I blew through several chapters on my way to the finish — just as I had blown through the writing of West Virginia: Lair of the Mothman when I was working on it there last year. I'm down to the last couple of chapters of this one, so I may be able to finish the book while we're still in Midland. We shall see.
Noon-ish, Ms. B, Del, Fern, and I found lunch at Culver's, a decent little burger joint at Midland Mall. Ms. B. and I had come here on my first trip to Michigan in 2014, but I hadn't been back since; it was worth the return visit. From there, we hit the road for Coleman, about 20 miles up US 10, to visit Kimberly's Aunt Betty and Cousin Jeannie. We enjoyed spending time at their tranquil place out in the country. On our return trip, we stopped in Sanford, a tiny community about midway between Coleman and Midland, as the ladies wanted to see if the antique store there was open. It was not. However, in Sanford, there is a webcam cache ("Who Named the Best Little Town by a Dam Site?" GCJRV9) — a pretty rare type these days. Although it's technically a two-stage cache, in the interest of sparing the rest of the gang an outing in the cold and snow, I had tracked down the location of the webcam in advance so I could quickly capture my photo to claim the find. Then, while the other folks stopped back at Midland Mall to purchase a few necessary wares, I hunted a couple of the caches in that area. But of all things! I think one of them is just plain missing, and the other — a cache I had sought in vain on a previous visit — was just archived yesterday. Anyhoo, I certainly got in some below-freezing-weather caching today.
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| Old Rodan at the webcam cache (GCJRV9) in Sanford, MI |
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Hey, it's Christmas! It comes a little late for the Brugger-Rainey cadre, but hey, better late than never. Last night at Whine, Kimberly and I were discussing the groceries we needed to pick up for "Christmas," which clearly confused the hell out of a guy sitting next to us, who couldn't help but overhear our conversation. Maybe he thought we were from Canada or some other weird place, I don't know. Anyway, Chicken Marsala headlined our menu, which is one of my favorite dishes to prepare. Perhaps I'll post a recipe for it sometime. Not just now.
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| Little Christmas scene — one of Del's holiday creations |
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| Dinner in the works |
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| Dinner on the table |
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| The first cut is the deepest. How bloody rude! |
Anyway, we exchanged a slew of loverly, loverly gifts. Ms. B. presented her folks with several items she had purchased while we were in Europe. A highlight was a metal-tipped, handmade walking stick she had picked up for Del in Montserrat, Spain (see "Mediterranean Sojourn pt. 7: Montserrat and Homeward Bound," November 8, 2019). At the monastery there, you can buy walking sticks made by the monks, and knowing her dad appreciated such things, Kim decided to get him one as a Christmas gift. A particular stick caught her fancy, but it was a hair too long to fit in her luggage to bring home. And, of course, there was no way we could have just carried it onto the plane. So, the night before we left, she found a serrated kitchen knife in our VRBO apartment, and the lot of us took turns sawing off the metal tip. It was one hell of an effort (that was some hard, hard wood), but we accomplished it. And so now, Del has a metal tip he can enjoy reattaching to his walking stick. (He does all kinds of such crafty things for enjoyment, I might add). Having a little story to go with it made the gift a bit more fun for all involved. Me, I got some of my favorite yogurt-coated pretzels from Holmes County, OH, where we regularly meet Del & Fern in springtime. That area of Ohio, I might add, is the setting of my in-progress-damn-near-finished Ameri-Scares novel, Ohio: Fear the Grassman!
The Chicken Marsala turned out to be one of my best efforts. Dang near perfect was the consensus. However, while slicing bread, Kimberly came perilously close to slicing off a critical finger. At least a slice or two of that bread would have made a nice appetizer for Count Dracula. And now she's stuck making gestures that people who don't know the story might consider a wee bit rude.
During the evening, Ms. B. and I met her old friend Darren at Bar Oxygen, an appealing, if somewhat overpriced lounge at the H Hotel downtown. They do have good drinks (including the Jalapeno Cucumber Gin Rickey, which I discovered there last year (see "More Midland Misadventures," January 12, 2019); it's like a hot and spicy salad in a refreshing drink), and the atmosphere is irresistible. After this, Ms. B. hauled me over to find a cache at a neat location just west of downtown ("You Shall Not Pass!" GC6NM88). Afterward, we spent more mellow times with her folks watching Chopped on The Food Network. This is one of those traditional Brugger thingummies. I actually enjoyed it.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The Bruggers went out antiquing pretty early, so I settled myself in the basement in my favorite chair and worked on Ohio: Fear the Grassman! In fact, I ended up all but finishing Ohio: Fear the Grassman! I have only a few short paragraphs left to wrap it up — at least the first draft. I'll need to go in there and do some editing before I send it out to Crossroad. But getting to this point was way too long coming, thanks to one crisis after another back in the fall and early winter.
Unfortunately, a migraine set in just before dinnertime. Fortunately, it was such a mild migraine, it didn't knock me out. After the ocular light show was done, the headache never really developed.
For dinner, Ms. B. and I went to Villa D'Alessandro, which I had never visited, although Ms. B. used to go when it was in another (apparently less expensive) location. We quite enjoyed a bottle of Masi Campofiorin, a nice, not-too-pricey Italian red blend. For the entrĂ©es, I ordered the Capelli d'Angelo alla Bolognese (beef & pork Bolognese sauce over angel hair), which was excellent, although for the pasta I would have preferred tagliatelle, which we had in Italy on several occasions. Brugger really enjoyed her Portabella Ravioli — ravioli filled with Portabella mushrooms, ricotta, Pecorino Romano and Parmesan cheese, served in a cream sauce with mushrooms, onions, and garlic. I tried some of hers and almost fell over, it was so good.
And finally, we ended up our last night in Midland watching TV in the basement again with Del and Fern. I don't know exactly when Kimberly and I went to bed, but it was pretty late.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
And off we flew for home. Well, eventually. I had predicted that, because we had blizzard conditions and no delays on the way up, today we would have delays because the weather wasn't bad. We did. Now, there was a bit of snow in Chicago, but that in itself didn't seem to be the holdup. I'm pretty sure overbooked flights lay at the root of it.
Anyway, our Flint to Chicago flight I have dubbed the CO2 Flight because it was the talkiest flight I think I have ever taken. The guys behind us never paused to breathe during the whole hour in the plane. Just emitted copious quantities of CO2, which would have registered damn near lethal levels had we tested the air. The Chicago to Greensboro flight I have dubbed the Bathroom Bomber Flight because Ms. B. and I sat at the back of the plane, just in front of the john, and from the time we boarded the plane until we landed, that bathroom was loaded. People stood in line to get in there for uncomfortably lengthy spells (uncomfortably for me, I should say). In fact, our take-off was delayed beyond the original delay because some bumpkin had to hit the head after we were all buckled in and ready to be pushed back from the gate. So, we missed that window, and thus had to wait another 20 minutes to roll. Damn, people!
Another fookin' migraine set in right at the start of the Bathroom Bomber Flight. It wasn't as innocuous as yesterday's migraine, but at least it wasn't killer. A relatively mild headache.
Anyhoo, I'm back home, the blog is writ, and I've got a couple of paragraphs to finish up in Ohio: Fear the Grassman!
I sure do wish I had that chair from the Bruggers' basement. Hell, I wish I was in the Bruggers' basement right about now.
That is all.
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