The Reading Journal of RMS

I arrived in Ann Arbor this morning, and I've had a good start so far! At the coffee shop, I got two punches on my punch card -- I'm not sure if it's because I was cheerful, or because the barista took pity on me after I said that I was straight off the red-eye. The weather is sunny and in the 30's F (0's C), which happens to be weather I like. I'm happy to see people! People are happy to see me!

(Also, people keep asking if I was in town to see Michigan win the CCHA championship game on Saturday night. I love that I have a reputation as some kind of crazy hockey fan. Especially because I did consider it, but figured that it would be jinxing it. As it is, I'm glad I'll be able to watch this weekend's regionals with other people who care!)

Oh, and there's the whole getting work done, but even that is going well. I had a good meeting with my adviser, and things feel much more manageable than they did a week ago.

It's good to be back in Ann Arbor. I like to think that when I feel a connection to a place, it's because of the people there, and not the place itself. But walking across town this evening, I realized that I love Ann Arbor more than any other place I've lived.

I've had a really good weekend, even though I'm sweating just from sitting in my apartment.

1. My team won the family golf outing! Every year (we're on the 10th annual year!), all the descendents (and their partners) of my great-grandparents (my mother's father's parents) get together for a golf scramble. We have about 10 or 11 foursomes each year, picked randomly so each team has an A player, a B player, etc. My team included my mother, a first cousin of mine, and the boyfriend of a second cousin. The boyfriend was the best player there, oh my god, but the rest of us played well, too. My mom and I weren't hindering the team with our drives, or anything like that. So that was exciting. Hot, but exciting. (Our score was two under, which is one of the worst winning scores ever.)

2. It was really good to see my extended family, especially my grandparents. My grandfather is recovering well from his heart attack (because he's invincible), and is home and not resting as much as he should be. My grandmother's recovery (from a broken hip and hip replacement) is physically going slowly, and she won't be home from the nursing home for at least two more weeks, but she's otherwise doing very well.

3. Since the a/c in my car is toast, we took the eeee!'s car this weekend. He did nearly all the driving, but I did a stretch on the way home on the Ohio Turnpike. I was perfectly fine until the end, when I downshifted from 5th gear to 2nd on the exit ramp. Eeeek! In my defense, that's really easy to do accidentally! I did recover quickly, which I'm taking as a sign that I'm developing some of the right instincts for driving a stick.

4. The eeee! got an iPhone as a birthday gift from his parents, and so we've been playing with that. And they are so damn lucky -- went to an Apple store on Monday, and happened to get the last one from a shipment that had arrived about 15 minutes beforehand. No long lines for them! The eeee! has since converted at least one of my cousins.

5. LJ ate this entry, and the saved draft only went through part of item 2. It's so hot that I have no idea what I said in the previous entry, because I'm pretty sure there were six items. Oh! I hate my haircut -- I like the layers, but not the big difference in length between the front and the back -- and am thinking of trimming the back myself. It can't get worse, right?

6. Jeezy Chreezy it's hot. Hope you're all staying cool.