Au Gres Again
At the beginning of July I was about half-way through my trip. I returned to Au Gres to a much emptier cabin. Our first night, my parents and I spent alone. The next day, Janice came to visit and play in the water with me. She is an old friend and fits easily with my family. We spent the afternoon in Oscoda with the Schneiders walking the beach and playing Apples to Apples. Then the Peters came to visit and Nichole returned in time for the Au Gres fireworks. We all sat outside next to the roaring fire and watched fireworks being launched along the shores of Saginaw Bay. Janice and I went kayaking every day (but we stayed close to shore) and when Nichole arrived we helped her make an order book for her line of clothes.
Weekend Friends
Another weekend another round of weekend friends. I had been lucky enough to spend weekdays with my friends who work in public schools and have the summers off and with Janice who was on vacation between having finished her MBA and starting a new job. Saturday afternoon I spent with Chris, Elizabeth, and Madeliene in Kalamazoo. Chris's parents invited me to stay for dinner and I was delighted that they shared their time with me. After dinner, I scooted over to Leslie to visit Sarah, Jason, and Colin for the evening and Sunday morning. My time with Sarah is ALWAYS time that flies. Before we know it it is time to go and we're not sure where our hours went. It makes me smile to think that we've been like that for nearly 10 years now. My weekend visits with my friends were all too short, just like the rest of my trip. Despite their brevity, these visits always rejuvenate my love for my friends.
Nichole in the Evenings
I returned to Novi to spend the rest of my time with Nichole when she wasn't working. We had a lazy afternoon and eventually decided to go to Detroit to listen to George Clinton play at CityFest. After the show, we met Teresa and walked around to soak in the energy. After lunch with Nichole on Monday, I went kayaking with Janice, this time at her parents' cabin in Pinckney. We paddled out to a little paddle-only access pond and got caught in the rain on our way back! Not to worry...we warmed up by sipping coffee and chatting with her mom. Before I knew it, it was time to hit the road again. I had dinner with Nichole, Pat, Amelia, and Verheek in Livonia before calling it a night.
An Aside - The Search for a Coffee Table
After seeing Nichole and Dave off and catching a few cat-free winks for myself, I went into Novi to wash the car to return to my parents and to kill time until Teresa called. Now, my aside starts with our CD collection. Mike and I have a pretty silly CD collection but it is one to embrace. It is now a storage issue and I have decided that a storage coffee table would be perfect. It can hold the CDs (and DVDs) in a safe and convenient way. So I visited HomeSource and searched through catalog after catalog and found nothing. I go in every furniture store I can find and I look online but there is nothing out there! Not even IKEA! So, I walked into Art Van to look for a coffee table and ended up finding a perfect couch! It fits, it is comfortable, it has proper dimensions for our living room, and it is made specially for Art Van, which is a Michigan-only store. :( It is called the Oasis and it is made by Capris (I think). I am still searching for the coffee table...I'll probably have to make it myself.
Lunch at the Whitney
After finding the perfect couch, I got a call from Teresa. She was ready to play with me so I drove to her place in Detroit. Teresa and Chris were renting a house in Detroit for a few months. It was a pretty nice house with a big yard that Teresa had landscaped with vegetables, herbs, and flowers. So nice! I sat and perused some books while Teresa and Chris did some work for the Detroit Princess. Eventually, Teresa was able to tear herself away from the house and the work and go have lunch with me. We decided to splurge and pulled into the parking lot of The Whitney, a 115 year old mansion in Detroit. As we approached the front entrance, a server walked out and told us over his shoulder that they were closed between lunch and dinner (it was 2PM). We started to turn back to the car but decided that it was worth going inside to ask if they would still serve us and to our delight they did! We had a lovely meal and discussed how beautiful the house was and how fun it would be to eat lunch together on a regular basis.
Nichole called at the end of her work day and marked the end of my day of leisure with Teresa. I sped back to Novi and made dinner with Nichole.
A Day with Mom
I spent my last day in town with Mom. We scooted around town to run errands. We looked at houses for her to rent for the next school year. We visited Kim & Earl. It was a very nice way to spend my last day of vacation...with my mom.
While I Was Away - Mike's Mountain-Biking Adventures
Mike stayed true to his weekly mountain biking routine while I was away. On the 4th of July, he and his mountain biking posse had a Jamestown adventure. On an already grueling route, they took a wrong turn and ended up biking 16 miles, forging a stream, and stumbling on a Jamestown fair. (Mike will have to give me better details so I can beef up the story but, since I wasn't there, I can't remember all the gory details. :)
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Daniel Nornberg! Daniel was born to our dear friends Julie and Mark.
My Media
Books
Ahab's Wife
Man's Search for Meaning
Water for Elephants
Film
Citizen Cane
Jesus Camp
Music
George Clinton
A Mad and Faithful Telling by Devotchka
Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie
She & Him Volume One by Zooey Deschanel
Rest in Peace
On Saturday July 26 my grandpa passed away. He is the first person I have ever lost to death and this experience has been priceless if heartbreaking. On the day of Grandpa's memorial, I kept having mental images of him giggling. It made me smile but when time came for me to speak to the people attending the funeral, my speech was broken by tears. This is what I said:
In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Dearest Grandpa. You have always been, are now, and forever will be a man who "loves what is mortal" - your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren. I think each member of our family has held you close to our bones, knowing that our lives and our happiness has, in some part, depended on your love. In fact, I think it is remarkable that each of us probably thinks that you love us best because you have shared in our greatest adventures: being at our wedding ceremonies, our graduations, supporting us when we have started families of our own, swimming unabashedly in salty sea water. I aspire to be as dedicated to my family and as willing to have fun as you have been. On behalf of Jim, Pauline, Nichole, Alex, Mike, and I: rest in peace Grandpa. We love you.
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