July 15
I woke up before Meghan's alarm, and the sad bird was calling outside again. I would have liked to go to the window to see if I could see it, but she had her arms wrapped around me and I didn't think I could get out without waking her up.
When her alarm finally went off, she shifted around and then let go of me and rolled over so that she could reach it, and once she had her portable telephone in her hand I put my head on her breast and she reached down and scratched my ears and said that she was glad it was Friday.
We got up after her alarm went off again, and when she got in the shower I went downstairs to put out breakfast and then went back upstairs to help her get ready.
If I knew more about clothes I could have set some out for her, too.
When she came out of the shower she sat on the bed and I brushed her hair, then she got up and found clothes for work. And once she'd gotten dressed we went downstairs and had cereal together. I asked her if she knew what kind of bird the sad bird was and she said that it was a Mourning Dove. She said that they were kind of ugly, and looked a lot like pigeons.
We stood out on the porch and enjoyed the morning sun until her friend arrived, and she pet me on the head before she left.
I hadn't brought my flight gear with me this time, 'cause that would have been a lot to carry to fighting practice, so I picked up my glaive and flew back home with just that. I stayed plenty low so that I wouldn't be in anybody's way.
I put my glaive away and filled up my camelback and put on my flight vest. I'd forgotten to ask Mister Salvatore to get another one for Aquamarine but I knew how to find Dick's, so I decided I'd get her one on the way back and then I could find a post office so that I could mail it to her.
I decided I'd kind of take a triangle route, and so I called the airplane directors and told them where I was going, and I got permission.
So I cut across Western Michigan's campus and then followed Stadium Drive southwest. It was all pretty familiar—I passed by the place where Mel and I did our stormwatching, then I kept going until I came to a town called Paw Paw.
The 94 highway was pretty close and I could have turned around there and followed it back, but I thought I might as well get a little bit more flying in, so I kept on going, until I finally got to a place called Teapot Dome.
A lot of the fields around here had bushes of some sort—I didn't recognize them from the air—and what looked like grapes on trellises.
I made a big circle and looked around for airplanes and then called the airplane directors and told them that I was going to follow the 94 Highway back to Kalamazoo then land at Dick's. So they told me that would be okay, and so I straightened out my circle and flew back towards the 94 Highway.
Some of the signs along the side of the highway said how far away exits were, and so I figured out pretty quickly that I had to fly about twenty miles to get to Dick's.
I would also go right by Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn's office, so I thought maybe I'd go down a little bit lower when I got close and wave to them.
It was kind of fun to see the cars on one side coming towards me and on the other side appearing in front of me, almost like magic. I tried to imagine all the places that those people were going.
I could have taken a shortcut—the 94 Highway turned a couple of times and I could have cut across the inside of the turns—but that wasn't as much fun as flying along and pretending that the highway extended all the way up into the air.
When I'd passed our stormwatching spot and got to the railroad tracks, I looked both ways but didn't see any trains.
Once I'd gotten nearly to Kalamazoo, I found a strange curved road that went off into the woods from a building, and it had one big loop and one little loop and I couldn't make any sense of it. And a little further up on the same side of the highway, there was a long narrow parking lot and I didn't know what that was, either. There weren't any cars parked there, and it didn't look as big or nice as the rest areas I'd seen.
Once I crossed over Oakland Avenue, I started gliding down. I could see the Westnedge exit ahead, and the office building where Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn worked, so I waved as I went by, then I angled off to the south. I could see the big building where Dick's was, and so there wasn't any sense in following the road anymore.
I landed on a big curvy island, and then went inside the store. I knew right what I was looking for, so I went over to their camelbacks and picked out one that was just like the one I had and then took it up to the counter.
The man who was there remembered me from last time and he asked if something had gone wrong with mine because there was a warranty, and I told him that it worked fine and was under my vest right now, but one of my friends had seen it and had wanted one, too. And he asked if my friend was another pegasus like me and I told him that she was an earth pony.
He put it in a bag for me and I was about to tell him that I didn't need it when I thought about how useful it would be. The loops on the end were nearly big enough for a forehoof to fit through, and so I used my teeth to pull it on and then it was nice and secure. It would make landing a bit tricky, but as long as I kept my leg up (and it would be hard to forget) it would work.
So once I was back outside I told the airplane directors I was going back home and I was going to stay under a thousand feet and after they gave me permission, I took off from the parking lot.
The bag wasn't too heavy but it was really awkward and I think I should have found a different way to carry Aquamarine's camelback. I probably looked really silly flying it over Kalamazoo.
When I got back to my apartment, I had to pry the plastic bag off my hoof. And then it felt really weird to not have any weight hanging off my hoof.
I ate lunch, and took a shower, then I called a place which had hot air balloon trips. The man who answered said that they had an opening for tomorrow, because someone had canceled. He said that the forecast wasn't great, and there would probably be clouds but he wasn't expecting for there to be any rain and I could take that if I wanted, otherwise he didn't have anything for a couple of weeks.
Well, I thought that I'd take a chance, so I said that I would like two tickets for the balloon. And he told me where we would meet, and said that we would ride out in a van to our launching site, which they would determine depending on how the winds looked.
Then I checked my mail but I didn't have anything interesting. I'd gotten a couple of letters offering me a different money-card, but there was nothing wrong with the one I had so I wrote back that I wasn't interested, and put those in the mailbox to be sent out.
I wish I could have done that with the camelback for Aquamarine, too, 'cause that would have been really convenient. But Meghan and I could go to a post office tomorrow and mail it from there.
I was going to read some poetry and I'd even got out a Walt Whitman book and carried it over to the papasan when I looked outside and saw Caleb and Lindy and Trinity all looking at their portable telephones so I went out to the balcony and asked them if they were looking for Pokemons again and Trinity said that they were. So I flew down and asked if I could walk with them and they said that would be nice.
Caleb had figured out that each of them could try and catch the same Pokemon and that they didn't have to take turns trying to catch it, and Lindy said he felt really dumb for that. He told her that he'd thought it was only logical that each Pokemon could only be caught once, 'cause that was how it worked with real animals.
So we walked around the neighborhood for a couple of hours and even went all the way down to Stadium Drive and in the creek there they found a Magikarp and all three of them caught it, then we went back up along the back side of Western Michigan University, and near the campus police station they found a Jigglypuff, which Lindy didn't get, but both Caleb and Trinity did.
They also found another Pidgey in the park that hadn't been there when we went by the first time and Trinity said that I could try and catch it if I wanted to. Well, I didn't think I would be very good at using their portable telephones; it looked kinda complicated when they tried to catch one. But I said that we could catch it together if she wanted to get on my back.
So she did and she told me where to go to get close to the Pokemon and even held her portable telephone in front of me so that I could see it, and then when we were in the right spot she caught it and said that we'd done it.
I let her keep riding on my back, 'cause it felt kind of natural and she wasn't squeezing too hard. Lindy had taken a picture with her telephone and showed it to us and said she was going to tweet it, whatever that was.
Caleb said it was close to dinner time for them, so we went back to their house, me with Trinity on my back, and I could smell that Jeff was cooking things in the backyard. He was having a barbeque again and he said that I was welcome to join them.
I knew that Meghan would be coming over soon, so I said that I needed to meet her and that if she wanted to we'd come back, but she might have had plans for dinner already. So he said that he hoped we would but he'd understand if we didn't.
It was about a third of an hour and I heard her let herself in downstairs.
We hugged when she got upstairs and she set her bag down and then saw that her bra was hanging over the back of my computer chair (I'd thought if I put it there I wouldn't forget it).
I told her that we could have food with Jeff and Caleb and Lindy and Trinity and some of the neighbors if we wanted to, and I told her that I had gotten tickets tomorrow night for a balloon ride. She said that she'd brought some food for dinner 'cause she'd thought it would be fun to cook together but she could put it in the electric icebox and we could have it for lunch tomorrow instead. And then she said she had to put on a bra before she went over to the neighbors and I didn't see why if she'd walked over here without it.
Once she was ready, we took a bunch of the beers with us to share, and added them to the icebox that Jeff had, and stayed over next door until it was almost dark, talking and drinking and playing with the kids some.
Meghan was a little bit giggly from the beer and I'd had one more than I should have, too.
We thanked Jeff for inviting us and he thanked us for bringing beer and also thanked me for walking with his kids while they played their game. Then I flew up to the balcony while Meghan went around, and I'd already folded down the futon by the time she got out of the bathroom.
Just when I'd gotten comfortable she remembered that if she didn't want a hangover she ought to drink some more water, so she got up and got a glass of water and by the time she got back into bed I was half-asleep so I just snuggled against her side and when she saw that I wasn't trying to sleep on her, she rolled on her side and started scratching my back until I fell asleep.