December 8
I woke up to the sound of birds at my feeder, and so I stuck my head up and watched them until Meghan woke up, and we cuddled for a little bit and then decided that we were going to wake up Aric the fun way, and so she used her fingers to count down and then straddled him and I think he faked being asleep a little bit because he might have thought she was gonna stop if she saw he'd woken up. But I teased him enough with my tail that he couldn't resist and he grabbed my rump and pulled me down.
Afterwards, he snuggled up against us and me and Meghan were pretty awake but I guess we'd tired him out, 'cause he fell back asleep pretty quick, and so me and Meghan snuggled with each other and watched the day break through my big balcony windows.
Lots of birds had discovered my birdfeeder, and they were all lining up on my balcony and the trees a little bit further back waiting for their turn. It was about half empty, so either there were a lot of early risers, or else they'd been busy yesterday and I'd just been too tired from moving the cloud around to notice.
Meghan asked me what I thought the birds would think about us, and I said that probably since they lived in the city they were used to humans, and they might not even be able to see through the glass all that well, anyway. As long as we moved slow we were probably far enough away that the birds didn't really think about us at all, but I said that maybe if she went right up to the window they'd be able to see her better and some of the more skittish birds would fly off and wait to see if she went outside and tried to eat one of the bold birds. If she didn't, they'd probably come back.
So she moved right up to the glass kind of slowly and it didn't seem to bother the birds at all. And then I crept up next to her, and we watched them for a couple of minutes before deciding to go into the kitchen to make breakfast.
I'd never really had to think about budgeting for food, so I was already running low after only a couple of days. We had enough eggs left over for one more omelet but I was out of waffle batter, and we never had stopped by Meijer yesterday to get ingredients for a quiche, so we couldn't have that.
I did have some shredded wheat because I liked that and I also had oatmeal and maple syrup to put in it, plus I had the hay I could eat, too, although Meghan and Aric couldn't. I had seen Meghan nibble at a piece a couple of times, though.
So I made scrambled eggs and I was gonna make oatmeal but Meghan wanted to 'cause she said that it was kind of awkward to just be standing in the kitchen watching me even though I was cute and she said that it was also warmer near the stove.
Aric woke up again before we were done cooking and he came into the kitchen to see what we were doing, and when he saw that we didn't need any help he went back out and got his portable telephone and then leaned up against the counter and started looking at it. Meghan asked him what he was doing and he said that he'd been thinking and maybe we could rent a television so that we could marathon Lord of the Rings at my apartment instead of his house.
Meghan thought that was kind of silly and he said that we'd be able to get a much bigger one than he had, and she said that boys were always thinking about size. Then she asked me if stallions were worried about their size, and I said that I'd never heard one wishing it was bigger, but they sometimes said that it was longer than it really was, as if I couldn't see with my own eyes.
Then Aric said if it wasn't worth paying for a few extra inches, it might be worth it 'cause we wouldn't have to wear clothes to watch it. And that did sound appealing, so I asked him how much a television would cost and he said it would only be sixty dollars and we could have it for a whole month. He said that they didn't do weekly rentals, but monthly was fine and they'd even deliver it to us and pick it up later so we wouldn't have to do anything.
So we decided that was a good deal, and he ordered it and then asked what time we would want it and I thought the afternoon, 'cause we could do fun stuff in the morning and then come back for lunch and relax and be home when the television arrived.
While we were talking, I'd stopped paying attention to the scrambled eggs and shouldn't have, 'cause I burned them a little bit.
We ate breakfast in the living room, watching the birds. It had started snowing again but they didn't seem to mind the snow too much. I think they were happy to get good sunflower seeds, 'cause there weren't any sunflower plants they could get them from in the winter.
Then we talked a little bit and decided that we could go to the Nature Center and play around there for the morning. I bet the deer wondered where I'd gone, although they probably didn't actually care that I hadn't been there in a while. And they were probably done with their morning grazing anyway.
Aric said that we could take a shower first or later, and me and Meghan both though that later was better, to warm up after playing outside. So they got dressed and I didn't think I'd need my flight gear, so I didn't put it on.
And then on the way out of the apartment we came across Chad, who apparently also lived in the apartment building. I was gonna wave at him, but he had a kind of mean look on his face and so I didn't.
When we were in Winston, Aric said that he didn't like him, and he was the only person working in the theatre who he didn't like. He told me that Chad was kind of person who just seemed to exude slime, and if you shook his hand you wanted to wash it off afterwards, but he couldn't think of a specific reason why.
Meghan said she felt that way about him, too, and maybe he just needed to get laid. And that made Aric snap his head around and she shrugged and I said that it was true. Sometimes that made a pony grumpy.
Since we went in in Winston, we had to stop at the little kiosk and pay. I probably should have told them how many times I'd just flown in and back out but I didn't and when I asked Aric about it he said that when I flew in I counted as wildlife but when I rode in I was a person and that was very confusing. Humans have strange rules.
People had been doing a pretty good job at keeping the snow off the parking lots and sidewalks but they hadn't done much on the trails. There were lines of sticks that marked where they were, though, so you wouldn't get lost. They should have put them there before the first snow fell, but I guess they must have forgotten about it. Maybe they hadn't been expecting it.
We went around my favorite trail first, and the deer weren't there but when I flew up, I could see lots of hoofprints where they usually grazed, and some of the snow was disturbed from them sticking their noses down to get at the plants. And when we got to the downhill side, Aric said that he wished he'd brought a sled, and Meghan suggested that he could go down on his butt.
So he sort of got a running start and then dropped to his butt and he slid for maybe ten meters before he came to a stop and when he got back up he had to brush off a lot of snow and he said that that had been a really stupid idea and Meghan said that she hadn't thought he was dumb enough to try it.
I didn't try—I'd probably have hurt my tail if I did—but I did get a short gallop and then I flew off the top of the hill and started to fly around, doing little rolls and looping up when I got close to the trees, and just having fun while Meghan and Aric watched me. And I zoomed in just over their heads and then Aric wanted to hold up his hand so I could give him a high-five as I went overhead, which is where two humans smack their palms together. So he held up his hand and I zoomed over low and brushed against him with my hoof and then flew back around and Meghan held up her hand so I did the same thing a second time.
I left my leg relaxed, 'cause hooves weren't soft like hands, and I didn't want to hurt them.
I got a bunch of snow on me from flying and when I landed Meghan brushed it off my back even though it wasn't bothering me at all. I didn't like it when I got enough on my mane that it melted and dripped down into my eyes but otherwise I didn't mind having snow on my coat.
We went around the trail by the railroad tracks and when we got done we went down the other path that went back into the woods, and walked along that through the trees.
Most of the animals were in their nests and burrows 'cause of the snow, but there were a few chickadees and sparrows who were fat with seeds flying around and chirping at us. I asked if the nature center fed them and Aric didn't know—he hadn't seen any birdfeeder, but they could have scattered seeds on the ground, too, or else there could be someone nearby who put out food for them.
Plus there were lots of winter berries that birds liked even though most of them were poison to ponies.
We were still on the side that was by the river and the railroad tracks when we heard a train coming, so we picked our way through the woods to get a bit closer to the tracks so that we could see it better. Aric got to the edge of the trees and looked both ways 'cause his ears weren't as good at telling where sound came from. I was already looking north.
He figured it out before the train got close enough to do more than see its headlight and it honked at us and Aric waved and so I did, too, and then it honked one more time as it rushed past. And we got a big blast of snow that it pushed aside, and for a moment when all the railcars were sort of obscured and shadowy in the snow I felt an urge to move forward and touch them and then the feeling passed.
There was one car that was rocking a little bit and banging really loudly as it went by, and Aric said that was because it had a flat wheel. Sometimes they slid on the rails and that was how it happened, and they didn't always notice, 'cause the trains went through the railyards so slowly that it was hard to see it there.
Then after the last car had passed and it got quieter he said that Meghan should have flashed the locomotive and she said next time she'd do it if he did. So he looked up and down the tracks but there weren't any more trains coming.
We went the rest of the way around the path and then we went along the one that went across the street, and I didn't feel as uncomfortable in the tunnel with both of them there with me. Although since I was walking, it was kind of strange how my hoofsteps echoed up and down it, and when we got out the other side Meghan said that my ears had been really twitchy in the tunnel, 'cause I kept hearing my own hoofsteps.
We passed by a woman who was skiing, and she waved at us as she went by. Walking skis are a little bit longer and narrower than downhill skis, and you need to use the poles more. They didn't seem all that practical, but Meghan said that was because I hadn't thought about how difficult it would be to get through really deep snow. I said that I'd just fly over it and stuck my tongue out at her.
And on the way back, I did fly over the road, just 'cause I didn't want to go through the tunnel again. And I thought about making an ambush at the other end, since there was a lot of snow, but before I could do anything with it, Aric and Meghan came out of the tunnel.
When we got back to Winston, Aric had to scrape off the windshield, 'cause it had been warm when he'd stopped and so the snow had melted and then re-frozen as more came down. And then we had to wait a little bit until it got warm enough to drive.
We went to Meijer to get some more food, so that Meghan could teach me how to make a quiche, and she decided on getting pre-made crusts which were really clever, 'cause they came in a pan already so all you had to do was put filling in them and then cook them in the oven. She said that they weren't as good as home-made but they were a lot cheaper and easier especially if you weren't going to be making too many pies or quiches.
She had to look at her portable telephone to remember what else she might need to put in the quiche, and she also decided that we could get extra crusts and make a pie, too, but then we got into a bit of an argument about what kind of pie to make. Aric wanted blueberry, which sounded good, but Meghan said fruit pies needed a top crust and so they weren't as good an idea, and she said that we could make a pecan pie but I wasn't as enthusiastic about that, and so we finally decided that we'd make a pumpkin pie even though it was after Thanksgiving.
They had pumpkin pie fillings in cans, which was clever of them. They had a lot of other fruits, too, and even lemon which I thought was an odd flavor to put in a pie. She said that if I tried a proper lemon meringue pie I might change my mind, so then I wanted to get that but she told me that you couldn't make a proper lemon meringue pie with canned filling.
Aric said that we ought to have something simple for lunch, so he got some Boca Burgers, which were patties made out of vegetables, and they had lots of flavors. He said that you could cook them in a microwave, and you could put everything on them that you'd put on a normal hamburger, so then we had to go get buns for them and he wanted some cheese, too and then we went back to get some fake bacon for them as well. And then he decided that we might as well have an American picnic theme, so he also got some potato salad and pickles and potato chips, and he got popcorn for tomorrow.
Then we went back home and even though we were all hungry we decided to take a shower first so that we'd be clean when we ate lunch.
We took our time in the shower, 'cause it was pretty easy to forget about being hungry when you were in a shower with your friends, but once we'd gotten clean and were drying off I started to get hungry again and Meghan said it was a good thing that the food he'd gotten didn't take too long to prepare.
So Aric went into the kitchen after he'd put on his pants, and he started making lunch, and me and Meghan groomed each other while he was preparing our food.
It didn't take him too long to make it, and then he brought everything into the living room so we could eat it and look at the Christmas tree. He said that the food would taste better if we imagined that the tree was not decorated for Christmas and that we were in a grassy field on a sunny day, which was hard to imagine 'cause whenever I looked out the window I could see snow drifting down outside.
The potato chips were too salty and too oily so I didn't have very many of them. Humans love them, though and maybe I could have gotten used to them if I'd eaten enough of them. The potato salad was pretty good, and so were the burgers, and he'd also gotten cans of Barq's, which is a kind of root beer that was really sweet and had lots of bubbles in it that tickled my nose and made me burp. Meghan showed me how I could tap the can to get some of the bubbles out of it and it was better that way.
We didn't have much to do in the afternoon while we were waiting for the television to arrive, so we just relaxed. Meghan got out her computer and started putting my movies on YouTube, and Aric used my computer to look for theatre jobs that might be available in the summer, 'cause he said now was the time to think about it. I wrote in my journal, until we finally got a knock on the door and it was the television deliverymen.
They brought it right in and we didn't have a table to put it on, so they set it on the floor by the Christmas tree and then Aric had to sign a piece of paper promising to return it or pay for it if he didn't, and then they left.
We couldn't watch anything on it, 'cause it wasn't hooked up to anything, and Aric said that he'd have to go get his Blue Ray player, and I said that I'd come along, too. Meghan couldn't because she was in the middle of loading a movie, and we promised that we'd wait but she said it was okay, she had a lot of work to do and she might as well get it done, and we were coming back before too long anyway.
When we got to Aric's house, David was a little bit disappointed that Aric wanted to take the Blue Ray player because he said that now he wouldn't be able to watch anything at all, and Aric said that he could hook up his computer to the television and see anything that his computer could show, and he said that it was important, too, because I hadn't seen Lord of the Rings and he'd rented a giant television for my apartment for that very purpose, and then David nodded and helped Aric unhook his Blue Ray player.
Once we'd gotten that put in Winston, David showed us his nativity scene. He'd used dolls that he had—which he called action figures—and made new clothes for them out of paper. And then he wanted us to guess who was what, and once Aric had named a couple of them and I knew that it was a scene from the Bible, I knew what was going on. R2D2 was baby Jesus, and Spock and Data were wise men (the third was Doctor Who, Aric told me) and there was a weeping angel that was the angel.
Aric had to pick up Mary and Joseph and then he figured out that they were Scully and Mulder from X-Files. And instead of barnyard animals, David had used an AT-AT and an AT-ST and a Lego Jeep, and he also had a cutout of a dog in a coat and hat that he said was McGruff the crime dog. I thought it was really creative, and Aric said that he should take pictures of it and put them on the internet and maybe they'd go viral and David said he had and they did.
When we got back to the apartment, Meghan was still working and I decided that I ought to write a computer letter to Aquamarine, 'cause today was her last day of school and I remembered how I'd felt as all my friends left. I was sure that Cedric was going to be there for her, but she could probably still use some encouragement, and while I was writing it I thought that she wasn't that far away and we could have gone to see her.
Maybe she'd be happier just spending the time with her friends, though. We could still visit each other when we were back in Equestria, after all. And I guess it wouldn't be too long before I saw her, 'cause we were all going together to Florida soon.
I wrote it out on normal paper in Equestrian and it was only when I was done that I remembered that Peggy had been the one who could put it in the computer and send it to her, and I was thinking that I'd have to start over and use English, but then Aric helped me out by taking a picture with his portable telephone and he put that in my computer and got it to attach to my computer letter.
Me and Meghan made dinner together, and it was pretty simple, 'cause we didn't feel like putting much effort into it, but she said that it was important to have a proper home-cooked meal tonight because tomorrow we'd be watching Lord of the Rings all day and Aric would want to be lazy and would only order food that could be delivered. He said that it was convenient and said that he had a bunch of apps on his portable telephone that let him order food with only a couple of button-pushes.
After we'd eaten dinner, Aric wanted to try out the television to make sure that it was working for tomorrow, and he'd also brought How to Train Your Dragon with him which I had already seen but it was still lots of fun to try again, and I kept telling myself to be careful when there were flying scenes in the movie 'cause I wasn't really flying and I ought to keep my wings in but even so, I forgot anyway and wound up hitting both of them the first time that Hiccup tried to fly Toothless.
And we were all lying on the mattress and pretty comfortable and both Meghan and Aric had already gotten undressed when somebody knocked on my door and that perked my ears right up, 'cause it was Mister Salvatore and he asked if I was okay, which was a strange thing to ask.
I didn't know what was going on and Meghan and Aric were both scrambling for their clothes, and Aric stopped long enough to pick up my portable telephone and there was a telegram from him saying that he was coming over and don't answer the door for anyone else, and that was kind of scary. And so Meghan ran off to the bathroom with her clothes and Aric put his pants back on and was trying to find his shirt and I didn't know if I should open the door or not but I didn't think that Mister Salvatore would come over if there wasn't a good reason for it, so I went over and opened the door for him.
He was in his suit and had his embroidered vest on, and Miss Cherilyn was in her sleeping clothes but also had a vest on like his and she came in but he stayed outside and I had no idea what was happening at all, until Miss Cherilyn said that a Western Michigan student had just been murdered at his apartment and the suspects were still at large and it probably didn't have anything to do with me but they weren't taking any chances, and Mister Salvatore was going to stay in the hallway all night until the bad men were caught and she could stay in my apartment if I wanted or else she could wait out in the hallway, too.
I thought it would be kind of rude to make her have to wait in the hallway, and I said that Mister Salvatore ought to come in, too, but she said that he'd be happy out there hoping that the bad guy might show up here and he was probably already thinking of what he was going to do if it happened, and I kind of felt sorry for anyone who was dumb enough to try and get by Mister Salvatore.
That sort of ruined our plans for the evening, though, and instead of getting into bed and having fun, we stayed alert until late and when it was finally time to sleep Aric got a pillow and one of the blankets and went over to a corner and curled up there and I could tell that Miss Cherilyn knew that we were having sex and she was sort of pretending not to know, 'cause she said that she was sorry but my safety came first.
Me and Meghan offered her the futon to sit on, or sleep on if she wanted, but she said that she was happy in my chair, and she wasn't going to sleep anyways. And she said that maybe we'd like to move the bed to one of the bedrooms and that wasn't really a suggestion, so we did and then we woke up Aric and he went into the other bedroom and I would have liked to find a way for me and Meghan to sneak over with him, but we couldn't think of any clever way to do it.
Meghan kept most of her clothes on; she only took off her bra so that she would be more comfortable. And I curled up on her chest and I did fall asleep, but it wasn't a very good sleep.