August 16
I'd worked long storms before, but never all by myself. So all through the night I napped in Mel's truck when I could, and flew when I had to, and the whole night blurred together into a strange, almost dreamlike mix of rain and wind and me catching what sleep I could in the front seat of Mel's truck.
At one point, I was sleepy enough that I started talking on the radio in Equestrian, and there were a couple of times that I think I flew on pure instinct, because when I landed and Mel asked me how it had been I told him that I couldn't remember any more and fell asleep on his front seat.
It didn't clear out until after sunrise, and by my last flight I was really wondering if it was worth it to go back up and check the weather, but it was my duty, so I did it. And then I made a sloppy landing and zapped myself awake 'cause I'd forgotten to spark off and my tail hit first when I landed.
I didn't know that the sky had cleared until Mel shook me awake and he was in front of my apartment and it was light out. I'd slept through the whole ride home and after I blinked my eyes a few times I saw that the clock said it was nine am.
I dragged myself up to my apartment and took off my flight gear and then scratched at my forelegs where the radio strap and watch strap had been because they were both really itchy from wearing them for so long. I'd lost some hair under my weather radio from it bouncing up and down all night long, and it probably hadn't helped that I'd slept with my head on it a couple of times. I hope Mel had turned it off, or else everyone who was listening might have heard me snoring.
I think that this was the tiredest I'd ever been and I was really hungry too, so I went into the bedroom and nibbled on some hay then stretched out my wings and started to preen them because I knew I'd be sorry if I didn't. And it might not have been the best job I ever did, but it was good enough and I was going to just close my eyes for a minute to rest them and then go to bed but when I woke up again I had my head on a haybale and my neck was sore and my left hind leg was asleep.
So I did a three-legged walk to my futon and shook off as much hay as I could and then climbed up in bed and it felt pretty big and lonely. My body couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to sleep or be awake, because it was the middle of the day and if I'd had someone to snuggle with I think it would have been easier to fall asleep again.
I must have napped for a couple of hours, and I only woke up because my pocket telephone was beeping at me and I couldn't figure out why until I looked at it and the little battery was red, since I'd just left it in my pocket when I'd gotten home instead of charging it like I should have.
Even though I should have taken a shower, I didn't feel like it, so I brushed my mane and tail and then put on my saddlebags because I needed to get more food from the farmer's market.
I hated to leave without my portable telephone just because Mister Salvatore might get mad if I didn't have it with me but it wouldn't do me any good if it wasn't working, so I left it on my desk and flew off to the farmer's market.
At least the flight there woke me up, but it also made me realize how hungry I was. So everything at the farmer's market smelled a lot more tempting and I think if I hadn't had some carrots to fill my empty belly I would have gone home with overflowing saddlebags.
Probably nobody at the market would have minded, but I had to make sure that I didn't get too much food or it would go bad while I was on vacation out west.
And that reminded me I was going to have to make sure that Meghan kept the bird feeders full while I was gone.
I flew back to my apartment and put my food away in the electric icebox and then had one cold pancake with Nutella on it as a snack, and I decided that I'd done plenty of flying exercise but I ought to trot around a little bit and I could have gone around our neighborhood but I preferred not being on cement, and the closest place I knew with dirt trails was the nature center.
Of course I had to fly to get there, but since I was going to stay low I left all my flight gear at the apartment and went without, which felt kind of strange.
I'd wondered if Gusty was going to want to keep wearing clothes once she got back to Equestria, and now I was starting to think that maybe I'd have a hard time flying without any of my gear. It felt really odd to not be wearing any of it.
I landed at the top of the hill and started trotting around the path and it was alright up there but once I got further down the trail where it was lower, there was a lot of mud from all the rain.
Right as I landed in the first puddle, I heard my mom's voice in my head telling me not to splash in puddles or else I'd have to take a bath and I held my wings out and hesitated just a moment and then I landed in it anyways and went back to trotting around the trail.
It was nice and squishy and felt good on my hooves, and I was kind of sorry that I was kicking it up on my belly too. And so I made a couple of laps and by the time I was done I had mud on me nearly everywhere—it had dried into a crust on my belly and my tail was all stuck together with the mud I'd gotten on it, and my hooves were packed full, too. It wasn't going to shake off, so I flew up and over the trees and the railroad tracks, leaving a trail of falling mud-clumps behind me, and I landed in the river, right on the shore.
The river was pretty muddy and it was hard to see the bottom, so I had to kind of feel around until I got good footing, and I took short, sweeping steps out into deeper water so that I wouldn't trip myself over a snag, 'cause I really didn't want to fly back home with wet wings if I could help it.
I lifted each hoof off the bottom one at a time to let the current rinse them out, and once I figured I'd gotten most of it off I took off from the river, dipping my wings in the water just a little bit at the bottom of their stroke, until I'd gained enough height that just my hooves were in the water, dragging me along a little bit but also getting clean in the process.
When I was satisfied with how clean they were, I lifted them out of the water and with that drag gone I picked up altitude pretty quickly.
I followed the river back to downtown, and had to climb higher because there was a train on the railroad bridge and even though I could have gone under it felt like that was a lot of weight on it and I could imagine the train falling off. I'm sure it wouldn't, because the bridge must have been strong enough to hold trains up, but it still felt safer to go over.
The two big drains were foamy and white with all the water that they were letting into the river, and it was hard to imagine what they must have looked like last night when the rain was really coming down.
I flew over Main Street and back home that way. It felt a little bit strange to be on the wrong side of the road as I flew up the hill; normally I went with traffic but it was a little bit shorter to go against it and since I was up in the air it didn't really matter which way I flew.
I'd just banked into a turn to get back to my apartment when I remembered that I'd meant to fill Aric's bird feeder yesterday and I hadn't done it. So I flew to his house and landed in the backyard and I was glad I'd remembered because it was almost completely empty.
The garage door was sticking on the frame, 'cause I think all the rain had made it swell up some, and I really had to push on it before it opened.
Mister mouse had taken all his treats again, so after I filled the bird feeder I left another little pile of seeds (which was something else I was going to have to ask Meghan to do) and put the bag back in Aric's icebox.
The door didn't shut right either, and I couldn't get a good tug on the handle with my hooves. I could have pushed it closed from inside, but then how would I get back out? And I thought that I ought to tell David or Angela, so I knocked on the side door and waited until she came out, and then I told her about it and she said she'd get David to close it later.
I also remembered to tell her that she and David could come to Jeff's party on Friday, and she thanked me for the invitation and said that she was pretty sure that they weren't doing anything else, but she'd have to check with him.
When I got back home, I filled up my bird feeder, too, because it was also pretty low on seeds.
I had leftover pancakes for dinner, along with some hay and a bit of kale that I'd gotten at the farmer's market. Kale was kinda bitter but the flavor got evened out with the clover hay, and the woman who had sold it said that kale was the healthiest leaf vegetable. I'd never tried it before because nopony grew it back home.
I still hadn't gotten any bath salts, and I thought about flying out and seeing if I could find some somewhere but I didn't feel like putting that much effort into it, so I used soap to make bubbles and filled up the bathtub and that was really nice and relaxing. It would have been better if Meghan had been here to share it with me and I almost got out of the tub to get my portable telephone and call her, but even if she did want to I'd be finished before she got to my apartment.
When the water got cold, I let about half of it out and filled it back up with more hot water, which was kind of wasteful but then again there had been plenty of new water falling last night.
Getting out of the bathtub was a problem I hadn't anticipated. I was too relaxed, and just getting my hooves back under me so I could stand up took a couple of tries, and once I was standing I shook off then waited a little bit before I tried to step over the edge of the bathtub 'cause I didn't want to crash-land on the bathroom floor.
Maybe I'd have to see if there was a sticky mat like the one in the bathtub that would work on the bathroom floor. The tiles were kind of tricky especially when they were wet. Meghan had showed me how to put a floor-towel down which helped, but it could wrinkle up and skid out of the way.
I dried my mane some and then took the towel to my futon so I wouldn’t make a wet spot when I laid down, and I got out my Bible and went back to reading Jeremiah, but I didn't get very far because I was so tired that the words kept blurring together and after I'd read the same section four times in a row and still couldn't remember what it had said I knew that I ought to just sleep instead.
That was the bad thing about being up all night—it felt like I'd spent most of the day sleeping, but I hadn't gotten really rested.
So I stretched out on my futon and since I was still warm from the bath I didn't pull up my blankets at all, and even though I was really tired I didn't fall asleep all that fast.