Let me recap Christmas and the day after.

As per Zack’s modus operandi, he woke me with a gentle 730a “Alriiiight!” and crinkled paper and wooshed about the living room with his new loot. I fell back asleep and dreamt of Portland city lights. I finally woke up around 1030a. I unpacked my stocking which was stuffed with candies, zombie finger puppets, gift cards, and a Tibetan prayer player (AAA batteries not included.) Dad and I drove in my rental car to the only open Starbucks nearby in Birmingham. 25 minutes later we were back with coffee in hand for the family. I slowly opened presents throughout the morning. I received some wonderful presents…2 of which I am wearing now; cozy new socks. My mom and dad had promised not to get each other gifts this year and I caught wind of this. I decided the most tactful thing to do was take the money that I was going to spend on everyone and pool it more to them. I got them both $100 gift cards. I’ve never been able to do that for them before and it made me really happy to see I could get them something that they could use. Everyone got gift cards, candy and a “Smooshed Apple” fruit jerky. It was nice.

For most of the day, we hung around the house, playing games and joking around. Sierra decided to start the excavation of her room and modified her picture wall, which is  literally a wall of photos from the last X years. It was great to see her start to take the initiative. Steph came over and modeled her impostor “Snuggy” which I am calling a “Sniggy”. It is a comforter that snaps on like a hoody and has zippers and all sorts of ancillary function. Wow. We had dinner, laughed, ate, laughed some more. Sierra retreated to her bedroom with Steph and the rest of us ate pie.

I played with my gifts and wound up passing out on the couch after watching with Sierra and Steph the last 2 episodes of The Hills…(Lesa-shut it) and the horrifically bad movie “Wanted”–too clever, too violent, too desperate to be Fight Club’s distant cousin. The last line of the movie has the main character look at the camera and ask, “What the fuck did you do today?”–too condescending.

This morning I woke at 11a to the giggling sounds of Sierra and Steph as they talked over coffee and cereal. Steph left and Sierra and I decided to go gallivant around west Royal Oak. We wound up at Michael’s and Dunam’s looking for on-sale Christmas lights and cozy shorts. One out of two isn’t so bad. The shorts fit good I am told. I also escorted Sierra to Comerica bank where she started her first checking account. I am very proud of her. Little steps make large differences.

We wound up going to Athena’s Coney Island where we gorged on junk food and chocolate milk shakes. She told me a bit about school and we laughed over fries. We then drove to Hilton Family Billiards where I was effectively stomped by Sierra as the pool shard she is at 10-7. Finally, we went to Cafe Du Marquis and had wonderful talks with regulars about Finnish Metal, Chess Metal, and Pepito the Cafe Du Marquis mascot chihuahua. I was worried about smelling bad from all of the smoke I was surrounding myself by so I thought purchasing a shirt would be a good idea. The shirt I bought from the cafe smells of 15 years of collected smoke and is most likely giving me lung cancer now as I wear it.

I dropped Sierra off at the house to meet up with her other friend Abby. I made some calls and texted some people before heading back to the east side to visit Tom, Jackie, Steve, and Sean. Tom’s grandmother died recently and he bought her house. I am really proud of him. I met Roxy the pitbull and made love to her jowls on the couch. We picked Jackie up from work and an hour later her sister.

After driving her sister home we thought it would be only apropriate to go to Ram’s Horn and buy late night coffee and sandwiches. The waitress was bored so I kept harrassing her as I normally would. When around old friends I am a little more obnoxious than around my professional colleages and wound up talking to the waitress about her sleeping problems; at which point we discovered she has a hard time staying awake. Casually, I asked her if she had ever been branded while sleeping. She never came back to check on us after that.

We went back to the house to exchange memories, smiles, laughs and the education of mild narcotics. I decided that I needed to go as I didn’t want to be out too late driving in the fog that had rolled in over the last few hours.

Fog on I-696

As I drove through the fog, I started thinking about the trip so far. The trip from Portland to here. The tension of the house as the year draws to a close, the seal problems of the house and its lack there-of. There has been a lot of social, physical, mental, and spiritual fog on this journey. I think talking has cut through a lot it. It is hard sometimes to sit as a spectator to my families trials and I am always an open ear but I wish sometimes I could give them more of myself.

Tomorrow, or should I say, later today, we are going to the DIA to see some art and enjoy our family friends Kate and Jerry Dunn. Jerrry is Sierra’s god father and one of dad’s oldest friends. I love them a lot and have always thought of them as family. I look forward to that time. I have to give up my sweet ride tomorrow as well–kind of bummed out about that. Sunday will be wrap up day as I pack my loot as well as more books to slowly move my stuff out of the basement here back to my home in Portland. Yikes.

Happy holidays everyone. Please be safe and have a wonderful and fun and love filled New Year’s celebration!
~Gabe

After Kansas City, MO we had a bit of a delayon the runway as might be expected.

Finally airborn I rested my head and waited to get into Midway. We were told not to land as the runway was overbooked with air traffic. Finally we touched down and taxied to the gate after waiting 45 minutes. The reboard went pretty quick and I moved up a few rows to expedite my offboarding in Detroit. The plan was over loaded by 600 pounds initially. After repacking and rebalancing the plane, they got it down to 100 pounds over. So in a move of despiration they kicked some poor sap off to make it work. Jokingly, the service attendant said to the guy as he left the plane, “Lose a couple pounds, would ya?!”…he was not amused. Finally after all of the commotion we taxied to the runway and had to stop to de-ice. Finally ,after two and a half hours, we took flight. The flight was an eternal 35 minutes. As we were landing we again were asked to stay in a holding pattern above Detroit as the runway needed to be inspected. At this point after being full on peanuts, coffee, and Burger King, I was irate. We touched down, taxied to the gate for 10 minutes and I was off the plane…in Detroit…finally. It was 215am. The parents hired a driver to pick me up-Mustafa. He was a tall dark east African gentleman with a hat and a beautiful accent. He escorted me to the Metrocar. On the way to the parent’s house, we spoke about all subject ranging from the auto bailout to family and social values and the differences therein between American and Sudanese culture and the benefits and drawbacks of both. On the way, mid-sentence there was a truck backing up on the highway stuck in a trough of snow. We both watched as the two kids helped thier dad push the truck out. He laughed and said, “They need meta-vitamins!…Hahahah!” then continued talking about his culture and the State Department of African Affairs.

Finally as we roamed the late streets of Royal Oak. He dropped me off in the driveway and my dad, wearing his typical biker shirt, jeans, and cheeky grin, paid Mustafa and he was on his way. We went up to the loft. As we were standing talking about Mustafa’s sense of humor, my dad noticed that the car was stuck. I dashed down with shovel in hand and we dug his car out and he was indeed on his way. 330am…19.5 hours of travel later…I fell asleep spooning the couch.

My circadian rhythm was still set to Portland time. The doorbell rang at 5am…Portland time. The water department of Royal Oak said that in 24 hours the house had racked up a $100 bill. They were concerned that a  pipe had cracked. All I could think was that it was 5am and I was only 5 hours of sleep into my slumber and this guy’s beard was piecing my sense of decency. I told him the owners of the property was asleep and we would deal with it later. He didn’t understand my dismissive nature and tried convincing me out of my comfortable heated shelter…I was not to be fooled and closed the door.

Later when people woke up I made everyone aware of the water “situation” and it was calmly put aside for a day when the water department would actually pick up thier phones. After a while, Pete and Megan came over (family friends). We laughed and talked and Starbucks was drank while groceries were unloaded from the car. I then requested to go to the Royal Rent-a-Car to pick up a Focus. The gauge cluster in that car is way over designed in my opinion. YOU HEAR ME ERNEST BREECH!? Respect!

I picked up the car and ventured around old neighborhoods, had lunch in old stomping grounds (Andary’s Grill formerly Kay’s Kitchen at 9 1/2 and Gratiot), braved Toys R Us and Barnes and Nobel, and took aim to try and find some gifts at The Road Show with little sucess. I drove back to the house.

When I got in I found Dad, Zack, and neighbor Don frantically shoveling snow away from the house. The seal had broken around the structure and water was pouring into the basement. We stopped the waterfall about an hour later and my shoulders still hurt. Afterward we cleaned up and prepared for dinner at Nippon Grill which was forementioned in a previous blog. In short great sushi. We came home and now I sit with coffee in hand and laptop in lap. Typing. I think tonight and tomorrow with be pretty low profile. I hope to wrap my gift cards I purchased and enjoy the family time.

I will more than likely update again tomorrow.

<3

~G

Hi.

How are you?

I’m good. I miss you sometimes…but not your economy.

I will be inside of you from December 23-28, 2008 to wriggle around.

Looking forward to it. I will wear protective covering.

That is all for now.