July 12
It was nice to be able to snuggle a little bit in the morning, especially since we'd been up late last night. She'd set her alarm ten minutes later than usual, and turned it off and held her pocket telephone in her hand like she usually does in the morning so she'd be ready for the next time it sounded.
I claimed my spot on her breast and she used her other hand to pet my mane and scratch my ears and when her alarm went off a second time I poked her telephone with my nose and made it stop and she thought that was really funny and rewarded me with more ear-scratches.
We got up the third time it went off, and went into the kitchen to make breakfast. I still had some oatmeal left, so I made that for us, and she sat in the papasan to eat it so that she could watch the birds. I kind of wanted to sit on her lap, but I thought I might wind up with oatmeal in my mane by mistake, so I pushed my computer chair over next to her and sat on that.
When she was putting her clothes on I was going to give her back her other bra, but she said she really didn't want to carry it back to her apartment because people might get the wrong idea, so I should just keep it and next time she'd come over without one.
Once she'd gotten dressed, she helped me put on my flight gear, too, then we went back to her apartment.
When she'd gotten her ride to work, I called the airplane directors and told them I was going to go west, and the grumpy man said that I could but to keep my altitude below a thousand feet until I had crossed the 131 Highway. I said that I would, and I told him I could give him a weather report when I was out.
I waited until I was a little bit past Meijer to begin climbing. And I announced myself on the small airplane channel, too, like I was supposed to. Nobody objected and nobody insulted me, so I climbed up and kept going west.
Down below was a big pasture that looked like it had been recently mowed, and all the grass had been put into windrows. There was a green tractor pulling a big boxy trailer along the windrow and so I circled slowly around to see what it was going to do. Well, all the hay was disappearing inside it and then all of a sudden the tractor stopped and the back half of its trailer tipped up, then a big round bale of hay rolled out the back. The tractor moved forward, the trailer closed up, and then it went back on its way, picking up windrows.
I'd seen those haybales before but I'd never seen what made them.
I looked around to make sure that I remembered the field—most farmers would leave a row or two of crop for pegasuses after they'd harvested, and I hoped that humans did that too. There was still a lot of field for it to cover, but I could fly out this way tomorrow and maybe I'd get lucky.
I went all the way out to a little cluster of buildings around an intersection that had a blinking light. I could have gone a bit further to Glendale, but I still wanted to go shopping at the farmer's market today, and I was also a little bit worried about how it was starting to cloud up around me. It was the kind of weather that liked to make rain and thunderstorms.
So I made a big turn and headed back to Kalamazoo, starting a slow descent once I was over the fish-ponds. I checked my altimeter and I was under a thousand feet when I passed over Meijer, which was where I was supposed to be.
I made a last-minute decision to stop at Taco Bell for lunch, 'cause I didn't want to go to the farmer's market all hungry, or else I might buy a lot more food than I could eat.
It's tricky to land in parking lots because even though there are arrows that tell cars which way to go, they don't always obey them, and sometimes they cut across parking spaces and I don't think they're supposed to do that. I even saw one cross a grass island once, so they're not always safe from cars.
But cars aren't supposed to go on sidewalks, so I curved over the parking lot to avoid wires, and then landed on the sidewalk and went up to the door.
There were a bunch of people waiting in line and when I came in a couple of them looked at me and then tried to pretend not to look at me, even though they still were. I ignored them because I was looking at the menu and thinking what I wanted to eat.
The person who took my order (I think it was a girl but I wasn't completely sure) at least wasn't confused by my order, so I got a couple of bean burritos and also a small bowl of cheesy potatoes that turned out to have the same yellow cheese gravy that the nachos at the Tall Ships Festival had had. And it came with a strange little spoon with spikes to eat it with.
I didn't feel like carrying my meal home, so I went outside to the little round tables that no one was using and ate there. And I saw a couple of seagulls up on lightposts watching me, 'cause I bet they were hoping that they'd get a free meal.
Well, I didn't really like the potatoes all that much, so I pushed them across the table and one of the seagulls flew down and landed on the next table over and examined the food, then he hopped off the table and strutted around on the concrete. When he was sure I wasn't going to catch him, he flew up and snatched a potato cube out of the bowl and flew off with it.
That was enough of an invitation for the other seagulls, and all of them took turns darting down and snatching at my potatoes until there weren't any left.
I put the bowl with the wrappers in the bag and put that in the trash can and then took off and the dumb seagulls started to follow me, and they stayed behind me all the way home. When I landed on the balcony, they circled around and once I went inside, one of them also landed on the balcony and peeked in my apartment. I guess they thought maybe I'd give them some more food.
I really didn't have anything to give them, unless I wanted to offer a can of anchovies, so I ignored him and took off my flight gear: I needed a shower before I went to the market.
When I got back out, the seagull wasn't on my balcony any more, so I guess he'd finally figured out that he wasn't going to get any more food from me.
I went without my flight vest, and then I had to decide if I wanted to go without the camelback, too. I probably wouldn't need the water. But it did have pockets, and I'd need to take money so that I could buy things, and I'd have to put that somewhere.
So I filled it up, strapped on my saddlebags, and then stepped into my camelback and pulled its straps tight, took a sip of water to make sure it was working like it should, and then went out to go to the market.
It was a lot busier today. The little triangular lot where I'd landed before had some cars in it, so I made sure that none of them were trying to move before I touched down, and then I went to the pavilions where people had set up.
Just like I'd hoped, the people who were selling the food were the ones who made it, and they also had honey and bread and bars of soap and one woman was selling flowers, too.
Everybody was happy to talk to me about their produce and how they'd grown it and why it was better than what I could get anywhere else, and it was just like being in an Equestrian market. One of the women even had a picture at her booth of a watermelon she'd grown that was so big it won a prize, and the woman who sold the honey knew what kinds of flowers her bees were making honey out of—she said she had several fields of clover just for them.
By the time I got to the last stand, my saddlebags were jammed full of food and I had a bundle of daylilies tucked into a strap on my camelback. They smelled fresher and they were cheaper than the flowers I'd bought at Meijer.
I was really happy with the market. It had cost a little bit more than Meijers, but it was really convenient and the food smelled a little bit fresher, and it was really nice to talk to all the people. I'd promised them I'd be back next week, and I gave one woman my address because she said that she could sell me whole bales of hay for less than what it cost to get them on the computer.
When I was back at my apartment I put away all my new food, and I couldn't help but have a daylily before I put the rest of them in the sink—I hadn't thought to get a vase to keep them fresh in. The sink had two sides, so one of them could serve as a really big vase.
I sat on the papasan and spent the rest of the afternoon reading more Psalms. By dinnertime, I was pretty sure a storm was coming, and so were my bird-friends. A bunch of the little chirpy-birds flew in together and all ate quickly then flew off again, probably back to somewhere safe for them.
Plus it was gettting gusty outside.
So I looked on my computer and it was predicting evening thunderstorms, too.
This time at least I had enough warning to get ready. I called Mel and he said that he was looking at the weather, too, and he'd be around to pick me up in twenty minutes or so.
I got dressed and then had some fresh bread with blackberry jam and a couple of carrots and a beet (the lady at the farmer's market sold them with the leaves still on, 'cause she knew that the leaves tasted really good) and another daylily for dessert, and I was just finishing it up when I saw Mel pull up outside my apartment.
I went out the balcony and got in, and he started driving off to our favorite stormwatching spot.
There was a woman talking on the radio in his truck and right after I got in, I heard her say that the police were still investigating the shooting in Saint Joe, and I asked Mel what that was. He said that yesterday a man had somehow gotten a gun in the courthouse and killed a couple of people. He told me that the police were assuring people it wasn't a terrorist attack and they didn't think it was related to Dallas.
I didn't know what Dallas was and I was kind of afraid to ask. I thought I'd ask Miss Cherilyn later, if she didn't bring it up first. The way he said it, it sounded like it was recent.
Mel parked his truck and turned on his blinking lights and I got out and flew a little ways away so that we could test our radios, and then when we were both satisfied that they were working, I called the airplane directors and told them that I was about to go up stormwatching.
They gave me permission to fly, so I started circling up, using the thermals off the parking lots to help me, right until I was up at the base of the clouds, then I looked around to see what was coming.
There was a whole big line of thunderclouds stretched out in front of me, and they were moving pretty fast. I could see that down on the ground there wasn't much wind at all—the flag over the gas station was almost completely limp—and even where I was, there wasn't a whole lot, but I knew that was going to change real soon.
It took another quarter of an hour for the storm to reach me, and this time I was ready for it. I'd been flying lazy loops and when I felt the wind start to pick up I put my nose into it and got up some speed right as the storm front hit.
At first, it wasn't all that bad. There was some lightning and rain but it wasn't all that serious, and then it was like the clouds just exploded around me, and there was lightning everywhere and the rain was coming down like a waterfall.
I gave Mel a quick update when it died down a little, and then it got really intense again and I could tell that this cloud was intent on dumping out all of its water as fast as it could.
Luckily the intense part of it didn't last all that long, and then I could see the ground again (and I could see that I'd drifted about a kilometer with the storm).
I told Mel I was okay and flew back to my original position.
The thunderstorm lasted for about an hour, and clear skies trailed behind it. So I told him that there weren't any more storms coming, and I circled back down and I had a couple of big sparks off my tail when I landed—I should have kept my tail up 'cause it doesn't feel as sharp when it comes off my hooves.
He had the heater in the truck at its highest setting and three of the vents aimed at my seat, along with a towel for me, which was really nice. His window was open, 'cause it was actually pretty nice out, and I think he'd have been too hot if it had been rolled up.
When I'd gotten settled, he pointed to the rainbows the storm had left behind. They weren't as bright as the ones we had in Equestria, but they were a lot bigger. And when I squinted I thought I could see another one above it that the colors were backwards on and so I pointed it out to him and he said that it was a second rainbow and that they were kind of rare.
Once I'd relaxed a bit and gotten sort of dry, he drove me back home and on the way he said he'd been thinking of tornadoes and that there hadn't been any yet, but if there were did I think I was safe up in the air or not. I said that I'd flown around waterspouts before and as long as you didn't get too close to the funnel it was safe, and you had to be careful because sometimes they moved really quick.
So he said that there was always a chance that there would be tornadoes, although so far the weather hadn't been right for them, and he said that if he got a warning while I was up in the air he'd try to radio me, and if I didn't acknowledge him he'd start flashing the headlights on his truck. And he showed me how I could just click my transmit button, and we set up a signal like that in case I couldn't talk, or if it was so busy up in the sky that he didn't understand me when I did.
He also said that there were sirens on the ground that would go off if a tornado was near, and he said I'd know when I heard them because they were loud enough to wake the dead.
Mel let me out in front of my apartment, and I flew back up, scaring off some of the birds who had come back out now that the storm was over and I folded down the futon and stretched out on it to preen my wings, 'cause this time I wasn't going to go to sleep with un-preened wings. And when I had that done I had a little snack, and I thought about maybe looking at my Facebook or reading some more Psalms, but then I decided that I'd rather just go to sleep.