No, I’m not engaged yet…
Back in the saddle again. After the week of sleeping in until almost noon [while I was in Michigan at least – when I was at home, I was up by 9 thanks to the morning sun] it was painful to hear my alarm go off at 5 am this morning. But honestly, it wasn’t as painful as it was to SET the alarm. Sigh.
But I know why y’all are here. How did the trip go? Well, in the short form, it was awesomtastic. What follows is the long form [and I mean long]. It felt really good to be back with the bf. I left early Wednesday morning by BART, which proved to be fantastic getting there. I hopped off the train at the Powell Street station so I could pick up my breakfast at the Starbucks and it timed out perfectly because when I got back downstairs, I only had to wait a couple minutes for my train to come. Here’s where it gets funny. So I get to the airport [and am so glad I was not flying Delta who’s check in line was insane and happened in two parts…it was that long] and check myself in and wander to my gate. I asked the attendant at the desk if my gate was still the same and she confirmed that it was so I sat myself down. Well, I’m listening to my iPod and am intensely engrossed in my crossword puzzle [lest we forget I am: geek]. I was looking around and began to wonder where the plane was when I noticed a man walk up to a family and they all left. I followed because I had seen the same man plop himself down at my gate a little after I got there so figured we were all going to the same place. Thankfully I did because they had changed the gate number on us. Fantastic. So it was me, the man and a family of four that made our way down a little ways to the right gate and wouldn’t you know I was the absolute last person to board the plane? We all joked about it while boarding and getting those annoyed stares from some people for having the audacity to being so late. Funny especially since the bf dreamt that I missed my flight. Oops, almost!
And then we ended up in Detroit a half hour early…the bf was unprepared and was still on his way to the airport, which didn’t bother me so I just sat and thought about getting a Caribou Coffee but never made my way down to the kiosk [next time] and made my arrival notice phone calls. We spent the first day and half in Troy and at Somerset Mall [the insanely rich mall with two sides that connect with a skywalk…I kid you not] just doing a little browsing. He wanted to buy me a nicer bracelet than the one I have now but didn’t find anything he liked. And I managed to negotiate my way into Tiffany’s to look but only because I assured him that I wouldn’t look at any engagement rings. Though I teased him mercilessly the entire time we were there. And for another twenty minutes after we left.
We spent the next few days in Flint with his family. We made dinner for his mom and sister…well, I made the salad and he ended up doing everything else. I don’t know how it happened but suddenly he had everything handled so I just stood in the kitchen and talked to his sister until he realized that I was no longer helping. But by then there was nothing to help with. We did go to the movies but we didn’t see Juno like I wanted [I asked him later and he would not budge…grr] but we did see I Am Legend. His mom and sister saw it before and we talked a little about it and then a lot more once we got back afterwards. Let me say in retrospect, it totally wasn’t as scary as I reacted and there wasn’t as much action as I would have expected [and I didn’t catch that first twist either] but it was pretty okay. Definitely not on par with 28 Days Later as some of the comparisons I heard [well, action wise that is] and I did want to cry in a few places too. I was a little sore after the movie because of the way I was tucked into the bf’s chest. There’s nothing worse than having that feeling of dread going into the movie and I was definitely feeling that. Nevertheless, after many warnings to the bf, he still laughed at me. Serves me right for making fun of him earlier.
Oh, the most exciting part of the movie? I had Red Vines! We stopped at Target to pick up snacks and I was talking about Red Vines and how he should have some and how inferior Twizzlers are [you know, my usual spiel] when I turned around and found trays of Red Vines! And they were soft! And yummy! And in Michigan! I should have taken a picture but I was too caught up in the awesomeness of the entire discovery. Anywho, after the movie we stopped at the video store to pick up a couple of movies, Batman Begins [because I hadn’t seen it yet and after watching the trailer for the new Batman movie, deciding that I needed to see it] and Shop Girl. Now, I wanted to see Shop Girl but wasn’t totally in the mood for it but he kept rushing me and vetoing all my other choices [including The Queen! That’s quality movie drama right there mister] so I just picked that one and immediately had buyer’s remorse. At least we only had time to watch Batman Begins [very good movie, by the way].
I woke up Friday to some small signs of snow, which was exciting. Funny how visiting makes it okay for it to snow but otherwise I was never excited [except for the first snowfall of the year because everything was so pretty]. Not much of the snow stuck though, which was very disappointing. That night we headed down to Southfield to visit my adoptive family. I hadn’t seen my uncle and his family since I graduated four years ago and I hadn’t seen my aunt in a couple of years so it was a great reunion. I brought the bf along so I could introduce him to everyone and we sat and ate tons of food [my aunt made lasagna, a really yummy salad, tons of garlic bread [I probably ate almost half a loaf by myself] and even made a peach cobbler in addition to the coconut cake she brought]. The kids are so grown now, it’s ridiculous. When I last saw them, they were nine and five years old. It was funny seeing the nephew because when he was younger, he used to follow me around all the time. Everyone would have to tell him to leave me alone. I told the bf how we used to call him my boyfriend and he got all embarrassed! It was adorable. I played Wii bowling with them [and my arm was sore the next day] before dinner and then afterwards we settled in to watch a bootleg version of The Great Debaters. We left about halfway through since we still had a long drive ahead of us but I liked what I saw. It was so nice spending time with them. The funny thing was, upon entering the house, my uncle started asking me if I knew anything about computers and I deferred to the bf and for the next 20 minutes, they stood over his laptop and tried to make it sync with the television. It was love at first sight, I tell you.
Now here’s when it gets silly. On Saturday, after breakfast, we all piled into the bf’s mom’s car and they took me to Frankenmuth so I could go to Bronners, the “Christmas all the time” store. They tried to prepare me for the insanity that was Bronners but no amount of warning would have prepared me adequately enough. I was completely overwhelmed but in a good way…after a while. It honestly looked like Christmas had thrown up and then eaten the throw up and then thrown up again in that store that stretched for way too long. We all had a great time wandering around and taking pictures of the most random things [seriously, in total, the bf took 230 pictures…and I’m sure the bulk of which was from Bronners]. My favorite thing about Bronners probably was the jumping penguins. They make me giggle.
After Bronners [and after picking up a brand new stuffed animal to add to my growing army], we drove a ways into the center of town to wander around “Little Bavaria.” I adore this place and I really want to go back and explore it a little more. We were on a bit of a time crunch because we still had dinner to go to and needed to stop by the grandparents’ house and still make that hour drive to Ann Arbor for the rest of our stay. We wandered around Zehnders’ for a little and gawked at the insane wedding cake they had on display. I didn’t like it myself but I took a gander at the price and was blown away. For 350 people, that cake cost almost $1200! Seriously!
After dinner at Red Lobster [where I had a very good parmesan-crusted tilapia filet], the bf and I headed over to his grandparents so I could visit with them. What was intended to be a very quick visit lasted almost an hour after the grandma fed me cake and his grandfather did his best to convince me to move to Flint. He has been the only person to do so. When we left he kept saying he was going to pray that God moves me there.
We slept in on Sunday and started our day really late. Like at 3 pm. When half of Ann Arbor closes at 6 pm. To my pleasure, we began with lunch at Zingermans’ delicatessen. It is one of my absolute favorite places in town and the bf had never been there either [he’s a North Campus kid through and through]. He enjoyed his sandwich though [after he scraped off the extra mayonnaise]. I ordered my delicious standby, the #18 Georgian Reuben. It was just as tasty and after minorly debating saving half of it for later, I ended up eating the entire thing as always. I debated going back to the deli [it’s in two parts, the deli and the bake house which is next door where they have their seating] to bring home a baked good or two but ultimately passed since I had no idea how I would get them packed into either my suitcase or backpack. We wandered around the campus for a bit and stopped at Pinball Pete’s for some video games and had my hapa ass handed to me not only in Time Crises 4 [I realized he just goes balls out with the machine gun to rack up the points, which always dooms my precise shooting] but also in this other random shooting game AND the basketball game [which I purposely picked because I thought I’d win…I should have taken off my coat but it’s white and I didn’t want to put it on anything there]. I was saddened. But we did end up playing the Deal or No Deal game and won some tickets, which I spent buying this little frog that doesn’t quite flip all the way around and a paper fan.
We spent that night cuddled up watching the Simpsons Movie [he bought me the dvd] and then many hours of Futurama and Food Network. I swear, those were the only two things I watched all week. Oh and What Not to Wear. And a couple episodes of Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents. I don’t think the bf has watched that many hours of Food Network before in his life.
Though that doesn’t even top the awesomness that was the rerun of an original American Gladiator episode! I LOVED AG so much growing up and the funny thing was, I remember watching that same episode before. I even mixed the contenders up again like I did the first time around. It was hilarious but what a great flashback to my once upon a time boyfriend, Nitro. Whoa nelly. I loves it.
Like I said, it was a very good visit. Each visit gets more real [in the sense of every day embarassing things happening...like how I managed to make the toilet overflow and the bf totally sold me out when the maintenence guy came to fix it - and the worse part was all I did was pee! Totally did not warrent the overflow] and I love it. Even if I’m the one left red-faced. I’m hoping that I’ll have pictures up on my Flickr later this week. I’m waiting on some from the bf before I start uploading them. The funny thing was this morning, the first thing my coworker asked me was if I was engaged! I knew it wasn’t happening but for some reason she was convinced I would come back engaged and now she’s got that feeling that it’ll happen before the year is done. We did briefly talk about it during the visit. He told me that he was getting the constant questions from his family about when we’re going to get engaged [especially now that we’ll getting closer to our 3rd year anniversary]. Just the other day I was talking to one of his closest friends and she told me we needed to get married soon so she’d have a wedding to go to and my Michigan aunt asked me if I had any “announcements” I needed to make when I called her to settle on a time to meet. He alluded to needing to save for things for us, like moving expenses and our engagement ring and so forth so it’s there. Just not here yet. That’s why I had to bargain with him to go to Tiffany’s. At first he was fine with it since he didn’t equate Tiffany’s with engagement rings…just those heart-shaped bracelets. It wasn’t until I teased him about the rings that he became hesitant because he’s of the mind that if he sees something that he things would be perfect, he buys it right then and there and financially, he just can’t do that right now. So that meant keeping me away from looking at rings in every jewelry store. But considering that it’s not me he’s worried about, I can totally get behind that.
Oh, but one of the coolest things? He noticed my eyebrows. I’m so marrying him.