Multiconstruct

I am glad I took the extra day on the mini-vaca, it was nice to get ahead of the game instead of jumping right back into it tired and coming home beat down on my first day back. Things started out last friday way too early. i had lost my watch and didn’t own an alarm (i like to get up naturally instead of jarred awake at a set time [picked it up from O’ Henry]) so i slept poorly afraid of over sleeping. I got up, packed and drank almost the last of the coffee (sorry dad), tried to go to Wal-Mart for a couple of essentials but they weren’t open yet (i didn’t know they closed), went to Hi-V instead for amongst things a 3 oz or less toothpaste. Hi-V has about 14o square feet of toothpaste on display. All of it a variation on 4 brands none of them less than 4 oz. wtf. Hi-V customers don’t fly, or they know you’ll have to throw it away and buy another one. I hate that our society is organized that everyone is potentially planning to rip you off, makes me paranoid. I pass on the 2 oz training toothpaste because its fluoride free. I love fluoride, i’m 42 and still got all my teeth. I got the age defying brand for the liquid calcium. calcium carbonate has been shown to fill in microcavities, its worth the extra bit when you can find it. starbucks wasn’t open yet but trevor had coffee waiting. we drove to the airport like a couple of kids way early on christmas morning. we had been waiting and we were ready to have fun. the flight was pleasant, trevor let me have the window and i could see the exurban sprawl and farms sprawl and farms sprawl and farms across the midwest. we got a budget rental car, never have i turned down so many offers for the add on sale, extra insurance, nope, no deductible, nope, insurance rephrase, still nope, gps, nope (but now you don’t give me the map i was counting on, jerks), sattelite radio five dollar, nope, car upgrade nope, come on now not even one class for 5 dollars, nope. It got ritualistic and quick. I hate dehumanizing as a survival skill. Why do we set up the world where its peoples job to rip you off? Boom, off to Monroe. Flying is weird. I woke up in Missouri and I was having lunch in Monroe Michigan. Went to Pete’s Garage, but didn’t sit in a car. Both my sisters came and the one with the husband and kid brought there’s. It was nice to see everyone even though we’d just seen each other a month ago, still. We ate way too much bar food because we had already had coney island (gyro and fries, not the greatest but better than you can get in CoMo) at the airport. We drove up 275. I reminisced about riding the bike trail in its entirety when i was 19 (15o miles or so). I remembered riding with dad in the truck and him telling me about it and me saying some day i would ride it and i did, my last big ride before i bought my first car, when i seriously rode (when i likely bulged my 2 bulging discs). hardly any of its open now. they let it go to shit because they didn’t want to pay for the upkeep. looking back on it now that was the theme of the trip. decline, loss, frenetic remnants. then it was just appreciating the glory days. this makes me want to get a recumbent and really get back into riding. I am on the low car challenge this september, pledged to only one car trip this month which is completed. Tomorrow i’m forced to take my first bike ride of the season riding my bike to the bank, hopefully at lunch. I think I will pay myself a dollar a mile to ride my bike and put it towards a recumbent. that’d be fun and might work exercise back into my life. that’s part of what vacations are for me, to give me some space to step out of my life and see where it needs changing. Then though we were just driving and bullshitting. we pulled into farmington 15 minutes late. we saw jeff and becky and rosie leaving the bakery and followed them into the burger basement. nice place. the owner came out and said howdy, make your own combo on a check off sheet. I had 8 oz beef with jalapenos, olives, tomato, mixed greens, grilled pineapple, and swiss with barbecue sauce. nice. though mayo might have been better. It was great getting caught up with the burns-pavliks. rosie had turned into quite a prepossessed little 8 year old. she took us on the scenic way to their home in farmington hills and was quite the tour guide. She called us Uncle Mike and Uncle Trevor. I used to be Uncle Mike Trapp because she has a real Uncle Mike whose a bit of a character. I told her I was glad we were still fictional kin. Jeff picked up some first class local brews. Detroit Dwarf stands out as yummy and an interesting tale. Look it up its too late for me to regale you with it but its a tale worth telling. also had a smores beer, syrupy and over the top but a little glass was good. Both jeff and i dozed contentedly after we got caught up. It was one of those 20 hour days where you really suck the marrow out of your daily bone. I slept the sleep of the just. I was in Michigan. I was home.