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// July 11 [Airborne Idiot] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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 July 11 

Aquamarine said that she had to check on her plants, and she said that there was a bus that took her there. She told me that I could come along or I could fly around for a little while if I wanted to. She said she'd be back in time to make breakfast and then we'd all go to the train station together.

She was sincere—and I knew that she wouldn't be mad if I wanted to fly. So I put on my flight gear and she propped open the balcony door for me, and when I was getting on my flight gear she looked on a map at where Lansing's airport was and it was way north of the city so as long as I didn't fly up too high I wouldn't be in their way.

I still used the radio to announce my intentions 'cause that was important, and another pilot asked me to repeat. I could hear a buzzy noise in the background which I thought was probably his airplane engine so maybe he hadn't heard me.

So I told him again that I was Pegasus 1 and that I would be flying from the corner of Hagadorn and Mount Hope Roads and performing maneuvers between there and the Pavilion (which was where the draft horse show had been) at up to five thousand feet.

Then he asked what kind of aircraft I had and I told him that the FAA called me an ornithopter, and he said that this radio was for professionals and I should give it back to my daddy.

Well, even though I wasn't supposed to, I told him what he could do with his radio and I hope that nobody who heard knows Equestrian. Then I said that I bet I'd been flying longer than he had, so he got kind of snarky and said that he had over four thousand hours in the air, and I told him I'd gotten more than that before I was out of diapers.

After that I just stopped listening to him, 'cause this argument wasn't going to go anywhere, but when I flew I kept a good watch for airplanes. He seemed like the kind of guy who would fly over just to see if I really was in the air.

I was glad I did, too, 'cause I'd just circled around the horse pasture when I heard an airplane engine from behind me and so I looked up and there he was, coming up from the south. Well, I think it was the same man but there wasn't really any way to know.

I found a sturdy-looking dead tree that was standing near the horse pastures and landed in it, just to watch him and see what he was up to.

He flew past me, and over the university, then he turned around and went lower and started to make a big circle, which was kind of stupid and dangerous, since I'd said that was where I was flying, and I hadn't heard him tell anyone on the radio what he was doing. So when he went by I read the numbers off the back of the airplane and thought maybe I'd tell Mister Salvatore when I got back to Kalamazoo.

After a couple more circles, he went back up to altitude and flew off and I don't think he saw me at all, even though I didn't try to cover my blinking light.

I flew back to Aquamarine's apartment and landed on the balcony then pulled open the door and got out of my gear in the living room. I packed it all in my saddlebags so that I wouldn't forget anything, and then went back into the living room and waited for Aquamarine to come back.

She had a little smear of fresh dirt on her muzzle from her plants, and I wiped it off for her. She asked if I wanted to help with breakfast, and I did, but I warned her that I still didn't know how to cook that much. She said that was okay, and most of my helping her was me getting food when she asked for it.

She had a low table on wheels that she could use to prepare stuff on, and a step-stool for standing at the stove, and both of those things looked like they'd be useful if I wanted to do more cooking, although standing on the counter worked too.

Jenny got up when breakfast was almost done, and Aquamarine put our pancakes and scrambled eggs on plates for us and then got us each a glass of juice.

When we were done eating, Jenny drove to the train station, and we waited inside until the train came, then they came out on the platform with me and I hugged Jenny and nuzzled Aquamarine and got on the train.

I got a seat that had a table, and after I'd waved goodbye one more time as the train left the station, I got out my journal and finished up my entries for the weekend, 'cause I hadn't had enough time to do it all. And I also wrote down the numbers I'd seen on the airplane in a corner, so I wouldn’t forget them.

I probably wouldn't have been able to get all caught up, but the train had to wait for a while outside of Augusta. The conductor announced that we'd be moving soon, but soon was almost an hour, and I was glad that I hadn't made any plans for when I was back in Kalamazoo. I could tell that some other people had, though, 'cause I could hear them grumbling.

We never really got going fast again, either. I could have gotten out and flown back quicker.

After I'd unpacked my saddlebags, I filled up my birdfeeder then flew over to Aric's and filled up his, too.

I thought about the airplane this morning and I still hadn't decided if I should tell Mister Salvatore. I hadn't been nice on the radio like I was supposed to be and even though he'd started it, that didn't make me right.

If it had just been that, I think I would have let it go. But the way he'd flown low right through the middle of where I'd told him I'd be, that was against the rules. I had to respect other airplanes, but they had to respect me, too.

So I turned on my computer and wrote a computer letter to Mister Salvatore, and I admitted that I'd been rude, too, and then I read back over it and couldn't decide if I liked what I'd written or not, so I left it on the screen and paced around the apartment a little bit. Then I ate the rest of my alfalfa, tried to remember how to order more of it, and then once I'd figured that out (and ordered a box of timothy as well) I read through the letter again and sent it to him.

It hadn't bothered me that the train was late, 'cause I didn't have any plans, but now I was pacing around my apartment like it was a cage . . . 'cause I didn't have any plans.

So I put on my flight vest and filled up my camelback and flew out of the apartment and I went north 'cause that was as good a direction as any.

I hadn't felt like using my radio, so I stayed low and just listened to hear if there was anything flying around that I should know about.

When I got over the dirt mines, I circled around them, watching the machines work, and that was kind of fun. There were yellow machines with a big scoop on the front that dug into the walls, and they put them onto a conveyor which dumped them into two separate piles, and then another scoop-tractor took the dirt out of one of the piles and put it into another conveyor, which carried it up and into the back of a big open truck trailer. And then when it was full, it would drive off and another one would take its place.

They filled about a dozen trucks that way before there weren't any more to put dirt into, and then the scoop-tractors stopped sorting the dirt, and I saw their drivers get out of them and go back to a little white building.

I had a drink of water and then flew off to the west, 'cause that was the way the trucks had gone. And I followed them all the way up to the 131 Highway, which wasn't hard because it took them a long time to accelerate.

I realized when I got back to my apartment that my portable telephone was completely dead. I hadn't charged it at all over the weekend.

Mister Salvatore had probably gotten my message, and then he'd tried to call me, and I hadn't answered, and he was going to be mad when he found out.

I kept expecting him to show up all afternoon, but he never did, and when I turned my telephone back on, there were no messages from him.

But there was one from Aric—he'd called last night, when I was at Aquamarine's apartment and I wondered if the telephone had been dead then or if I just hadn't heard it ringing from inside my saddlebags.

So I sat on the papasan and called him back and there was a lot of noise in the background until he went up to his room. He said that Autumn and Felicity were downstairs, doing some kind of fitness thing that involved a lot of jumping around. He said he thought it was called zoomba or something like that.

I told him about my weekend and all the tall ships we'd seen, and he told me about how he'd spent all his weekend doing tech so that they'd be ready for the show and that he'd gotten a promotion to light board operator that he hadn't really wanted but that was how theatre went sometimes and he said it wouldn't be fun if you didn't have to scramble at the last minute.

He said that they had another rehearsal tonight, but it wasn't for a few hours yet and he was just going to get some dinner at a fast-food restaurant and eat it up in the light booth.

I thought it would be fun to go and see his play, although I wasn't sure how I would get there. That was a pretty long way for Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn to drive, but I bet a train would go there. I'd just have to figure out which one.

We had to stop talking after an hour, because I hadn't let my telephone charge enough and it was beeping at me. So I said that I missed him and I'd send him a computer letter soon and he said that he missed me, too, and I hung up right when the battery picture turned red.

I read another couple dozen Psalms, and then I heard someone knocking on my door so I flew down to see who it was and it was Trinity who was knocking, and Caleb and Lindy were standing behind her.

Trinity said that they were going out to hunt Pokemon and wanted to know if I'd join them.

I didn't know what Pokemon were or how you hunted them so they all explained that they were imaginary creatures that you could see with your portable telephones and Celeb showed me the ones he'd caught. He said that you walked around until you found one and then you threw a Pokeball at it and if you were good, you'd catch it and then you could train it and fight with it.

I said that I'd never played and I didn't want to scare off any of the Pokemon, and they said that I wouldn't, and it did sound like fun to walk around the neighborhood, so I said that I would.

They kept checking their portable telephones, and after a little while they found one near a small park by Academy Street, and Trinity caught it. She said it was a Eevee, and showed me a picture of it on her telephone. It was a cute little brown thing with really big ears and a white ruff.

Caleb said that when students came back to Western, there'd probably be a lot of Pokemon over there and maybe at Kalamazoo College, too, and sure enough, they found one right by the library. This one was a Weedle, which was some kind of leggy worm with a hat, and Caleb caught it.

We went down to Main Street, and then back up Grand Avenue, and there was another one there, which Caleb also caught. Lindy said that wasn't fair, so they decided they'd let her catch the next one no matter what it was, and we went around the neighborhood a bit more until we found another. Caleb saw it first, but he pointed to where it was and let Lindy catch it like he'd said he would.

I stayed with them until they went inside for dinner, and then I went back to my apartment. I was really happy when I landed on the balcony to see Meghan inside, sitting on my papasan with her folding computer in her lap.

When I came in, she closed her computer and held it off to the side so that I could jump up in her lap and kiss her.

She told me about her weekend and I told her about mine and I think I had more fun than she did, although she said that she got to stay in a big hotel near downtown, and that had been kind of fun. She thought I would have liked it there, especially since the room had a jacuzzi tub in it.

I asked her what her plans for dinner were and she said that she'd already eaten dinner, so I just got some fresh vegetables (which weren't looking so fresh anymore) and snacked on them. And she said that maybe tonight would be a good night to make up for missing the hot tub last week and I thought so, too, so she called for an Uber-car while I was finishing up my meal.

We sat in the hot tub together until it was all the way dark outside. She said she really wanted to enjoy it because on Monday, her uncle was coming back home and then we wouldn't be able to use it and so I wanted to know if we weren't supposed to be at all. Meghan said it was okay—he'd told her it was—but that she'd have to wear a swimsuit if he was home and it wasn't as much fun like that.

Since it was such a warm night out, I said instead of drying off we should just sit on the bench for a little while and air-dry. Meghan was a little reluctant, but I finally convinced her to try it, and she said she would as long as I stayed close to her.

She put down a towel to sit on and then covered her lap with another, which she said was so I could rest my head there.

It didn't work out like I'd hoped, though, and after a few minutes she said she was getting cold and she got up and put on a robe then started drying me off, and then we sat back down and looked up at the moon and the stars that we could see over the lights of Kalamazoo, and I pointed out a couple of airplanes flying overhead.

It was close to midnight by the time an Uber-Car got us back home, and as soon as we were inside, Meghan got undressed while I folded down the futon, and I snuggled up with my head on her breast and she put her hand on my cheek and said that at least we'd get to sleep in a little bit because she thought that soaking in the hot tub counted as bathing, and I thought so, too.