The Mackinac trek: Days 6-9: Not Actually Mackinac
The last few days of our trip are quicker to recount.
Day 6: A day of resting, reading, and doing not much of anything.
Day 7: Dad went back to work. Mom, leorathesane, and I went to visit Grandma and Frank. Mom had the foresight to upload some pictures onto the laptop to show them. Nothing kills half an hour like a vacation slideshow.
Day 8: Another day of nothin' much, except last-minute laundry and packing, and a journey to Mom's local yarn shop to pick buttons for the vest we promised her two years ago and were finally presenting to her.
Day 9: We did not get up at stupid o'clock on Saturday to catch our plane. By stupid o'clock, we were at the airport and through security. The plane sat at the gate for ten extra minutes, because planes go through extra tests before their first flight of the day, and no one thought it was a good idea to start those tests early enough that we could take off on time. At MSP, Leora and I discovered that we were the only people on our flight who had checked luggage. Weird. Then we struggled in vain against Metro Transit for a while (who puts the light rail ticket booth on a different floor than the light rail platform?!?). As our train pulled into the 38th Street station, we watched our #23 pull away from the station. With the next bus not due for half an hour, we hoofed it home.
We didn't know what to expect, this being our first vacation since acquiring His Majesty. My memories of childhood vacations suggested that he would spend a lot of time ignoring us. But not our Mister Brown. Leora's key wasn't even in the lock before he appeared in the dining room window, meowing with that mix of plaintiveness and reproach that only cats can master. Once we were inside, he put himself front and center and made sure we knew that our attention was to be focused on him at all times. For the rest of the day, he was loath to let either of us out of his sight, and within scritching range was definitely preferable. Other than one piece of packing paper we'd foolishly left laying around upstairs, he had done no damage, although we discovered that he'd taken advantage of our absence to learn how to open two doors he's not supposed to. Thank you again, jenett, for taking such good care of our lad.
So, that's the end, right? Well...almost. There was, as we settled in for a day of vegetating and cat-adoring, one tiny thing we'd forgotten: Loungeboy, in town for happy_l_devil's wedding. He showed up at six. With a cake.
Loungeboy's notorious cake is a chocolatey concoction that I've never known him to go more than a month without making. When he comes to visit, he makes Luckjohn a cake as a thank-you for letting him crash on the couch. And that's fine, because Loungeboy is a magnet for feckless alumni gamers who appear mysteriously at Luckjohn's door, eat cake, and disappear again. But this time, he made a second cake. And brought it to Leora and me. The whole cake. Thank goodness for co-workers.
The three of us headed - to Mister Brown's disapproval - to the Riverview Wine Bar. I am ashamed to say that this was our first visit. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and intend to return in the undistant future (ytinas? Care to join us?). Then the ever-charming, -sexy, and -over-committed Fraulein Heilman called to see what Loungeboy was up to, so we converged at the house for cake, more liquor (naughty children!) and general mayhem. At 10:30, Leora and I hit a massive wall and banished our guests to the cold, cruel night. Okay, it was a cool, kind of friendly night. Happy now? We then banished ourselves to bed. And all was well.
Until just after midnight, when I remembered the thing I can't believe I'd forgotten about Loungeboy cake. The instant coffee crystals. Between the caffeine, the sugar, and the liquor, I was bolt upright in bed, my body shaking itself apart from the inside. I promptly shook myself into a panic attack, which my darling wife was kind enough to stay awake with me for. Once I stopped feeling like demise was imminent, Leora went back to sleep, and I went back to counting the pointy bits on the ceiling.
And so it came to pass that I transitioned from an extraordinary vacation to an ordinary life full of extraordinary things in exactly the manner I should: wide awake, wide-eyed, and shaky.
Thus endeth the reading. Om.