//------------------------------// // August 2 [Croquet] // Story: Silver Glow's Journal // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------//  August 2 I was a little stiff and sore when I woke up, so I stretched out while I was still on the futon, and then hopped off the bed and decided to take a little morning flight around the neighborhood to work my muscles some. So I went out the balcony, scattering a couple of the early-morning birds, and flew up until I was just over the treetops. When you're a ways up, all the trees kind of look like they're the same height, but when you're right at the tops of most of them, there's always one or two that are poking their crowns above all the rest. There were a couple of proud oaks a few blocks from my apartment that stood above all the others. I just made a quick loop, and then landed on Grand Avenue and trotted back to my apartment, to give my legs a bit of exercise too. Since we'd used all the waffle mix, I had hay for breakfast and then I started to plan out my day. I hadn't seen any clouds in the sky and it felt like there wasn't going to be any rain at all, so I probably didn't have to worry about that. I knew that some places had a rainy season which sometimes was called monsoon season and I had been worried that maybe Kalamazoo did, too. It wouldn't be a bad idea to go and trot around at the Nature Center some, and I had to get more food, and I should also call Mister Salvatore and see if he knew of some kind of little map I could carry. My telephone had one, but it wasn't very hoof-friendly, and I think if I tried to use it while I was flying, I'd just drop it. So I called him, and told him that I thought I was almost ready to fly to Chicago, and that I'd also been thinking that it would be useful to have some kind of portable map like my pocket telephone had, but one that would be useful while I was flying, and he said that he'd see what he could find. And he said that he didn't think I should try to fly to Chicago before I went to Canada, and I told him that I'd been thinking the same thing. Gusty would be upset if I got lost at sea right before her play. He said that he could probably get a boat for the week after, and that would give him enough time to negotiate with the airplane directors at O'Hare, which is the big airport in Chicago. He asked how my GoPro was working, and I said that Meghan had put a video on her YouTube channel of me flying in a storm, and it was kind of long to watch. Mister Salvatore promised that he would see what kind of navigation aid he could get for me. He said that he might try a couple and I could see which one I liked the best, which I thought was a good idea. I told him that I was going to go shopping today and he asked if I wanted a ride, but I wasn't planning to get anything that I couldn't fit in my saddlebags. It was still a little bit early to go to the farmer's market—they didn't open first thing in the morning because they needed time to come in from their farms. So I thought I'd go to Meijer first, and then I would have time to empty out my saddlebags and get to the farmer's market before lunch. I didn't feel like putting on all my flight gear today, so I just wore my saddlebags and kept low over the street, which was safe because airplanes weren't allowed to fly that low. I'd gotten so used to wearing all my flight gear that it felt strange to fly without it. My forelegs felt lighter, and my barrel and back seemed to be cooler than normal, even though it was a hot day. And I didn't have the fabric of the vest brushing against my wing roots, either. When I got to Meijer, I landed on one of the car-free islands in the parking lot, and then got a cart out of their little cart paddock and pushed it inside. That's one thing that I don't like about shopping by myself, because the carts are really awkward to push. I guess they don't get many ponies shopping here. As tempting as all their produce was, I skipped over it and went straight to the aisle with the waffle mix. There were lots of other mixes, too, and so I also got a box of Bisquick that could make pancakes, because pancakes were good. I had to get a can of spray-butter so that they wouldn't stick to the pan, and some other stuff like baking powder that the box said that I needed. It didn't tell me what kind of milk I wanted, and there were lots of different kinds to choose from. Some of it was only 2 percent milk, and then there was half and half, and there was also almond milk and soy milk, and I didn't know that you could milk an almond or a soybean. I would have to ask Aquamarine about that. They did have whole milk, and I thought that would be the best, so I added it to my cart and then went to find the sugar. There were also lots of choices for sugar. I could get confectioners or brown or cane or beet or artificial and I didn't know what was best for pancakes. How could there be so many kinds of sugar? Since pancakes were brown, I thought that brown sugar was the best choice. But then I saw a small package of maple sugar, and it was also brown and when I sniffed the package it smelled nice and mapley, so I changed my mind and got that instead. I also got some Oberon and thought about buying a bottle of wine to share with Meghan but it was more fun to shop for it together, because we could decide what we wanted right before we drank it. And there were hundreds of different kinds, which was really overwhelming. This time I'd been smart enough to not buy so much that it wouldn't fit in my saddlebags, and the woman who tallied up my groceries was even nice enough to put the groceries in my saddlebags for me. She didn't balance them very well, though, so I was a little bit lopsided flying back. I got to the farmer's market not too long after they'd opened, which meant that I had my pick of the freshest and biggest fruits and vegetables, and I would have bought more except that I knew I was going to be gone for the whole weekend, and I didn't want any of it to go bad before I got back. So for lunch I had a fresh cucumber and some carrots which still had the greens on them, unlike the ones that Meijer sells, and some green beans and a turnip. I did still want to get some more exercise, so I flew out to the Nature Center and did a few laps of their pasture course. It wasn't as fun as it usually was in the morning, because there were more people there that I had to watch out for, and the deer weren't anywhere to be seen. They like to hide in the woods during the day, and only come out in the mornings and evenings to feed. Instead of flying back the normal way when I was done, I flew across the railroad tracks and along the river, just above the water except when I had to fly up to get over an abandoned railroad bridge. They'd taken the tracks off it, but there were still long rusty streaks on the wood crossties from where the rails had been. There was a big factory with stinky ponds that smelled like sulfur and shit, and that smell stuck with me for a little bit. When I'd first seen it I thought that maybe the ponds had fish in them, and maybe they did but I wasn't interested in getting a closer look at it. When I got to the active train-bridge, I turned to follow the tracks most of the way home, up until they crossed over Main Street, then I went that way, curving off at the cemetery to my apartment. I took a shower, and then I got my Bible and sat down in my papasan chair and I'd just opened it to Jeremiah when I heard a knock at my door, so I went down to see who it was. It was Lindy and Trinity and they asked if I wanted to come out and play because Caleb was away at a camp and they kind of didn't miss him because he was a boy and boys were dumb but it wasn't as fun playing with only two people. So I said said that I would, and Trinity was really happy and hugged me and they played croquet first, and let me hit the ball with my hoof instead of the hammer. I still wasn't very good at it, but I didn't mind. Having fun with friends is more important than winning a game of croquet. I also gave Trinity a ride around the backyard, and then when Jeff came home the four of us walked around the neighborhood looking for Pokemons. He wasn't hunting any of them, but he said that he needed the exercise. They found a Tanglea, which looked like a ball of worms wearing a pair of shoes and I didn't see what the appeal in it was but Lindy said that it was rare and that Caleb would be mad that they'd found it and he hadn't. While the girls were trying to catch it, Jeff said that he could see some of the birds around my bird feeder, and that he liked watching them in the morning when he drank his coffee. He said that the girls did, too, and he asked if I'd considered getting a suet block and maybe attracting woodpeckers. Well, I hadn't thought of that, but it sounded like it might be something fun to set up. I thought that I could put it by the living room window, and hang it off the side of the house. There was a gutter that ran around the edge, and I could hang it off that, which would give Jeff a good view of it. There weren't any other interesting Pokemons in the neighborhood, but they did find a couple more of them that they'd already caught. It seemed kind of silly to catch the same ones that they already had, but it gave them experience, Trinity said, and experience was important. I guess I caught the same kinds of clouds a lot. There was a mare on my team who was really good with cumulus clouds but she couldn't do anything with stratus. They'd get away from her every time. We went back home so that they could have dinner, and I made myself a nice dinner, and then I sat down on my papasan chair and did start reading Jeremiah, until the light started to fade. It was kind of like Isaiah, with God saying how Israel had been bad and He was going to punish them because of it, and he was going to come after them with horses that were faster than eagles, because they weren't following His rules. He told Jeremiah that if he could find one good person, than He would spare the city, but if he didn't, God was going to make all the Israelites live in a foreign land to punish them. But He also promised that He was going to restore things once they had learned their lesson. Some people didn't like what Jeremiah had to say, and so they wanted to kill him. But God found out, and told Jeremiah not to worry because He was going to take care of them. God said that He was going to restore his people afterwards, though, and He was going to give them back what He had taken away. I put the Bible away and took a dusk flight around my neighborhood, and then across Main Street and over that neighborhood, too. There was a woodlot over there, and also a strange little cluster of houses on a looping road, that all faced one that was in the center. It was odd that I'd never noticed that before, but I usually didn't fly that way. It was dark enough that bats were beginning to fly around when I landed back on my balcony, and I yawned and stretched out my legs then went inside and got a blanket and just curled up on the papasan and fell asleep there.