Flights Not-So Fancy
Today, I start the first of three upcoming trips; two of them are to Michigan and one is to our vacation destination which is . . . drum-roll, please . . .
Portland, Oregon!
A lot of you are saying “Big whoop.” But I know one person who is poofing out his cheeks, nodding enthusiastically and clapping.
However, back to the Michigan trips. The first, which begins today, is to a) see my family and b) be present for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowsrelease party at the Arborland Borders. Yes, feel free to tell me how crazy I am for flying 391 miles to attend that, but also kindly bite me. What you like isn’t always what I like.
The plan for tomorrow consists of seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with my siblings and a few friends, heading over to dinner, and then heading over to Borders for the release party. And if you must ask, yes, I am going to go to Borders after 9am in order to pick my bracelet to secure my place in line (four copies, four copies!). This is the third and will be the final release party I have attended, so it’s a proper way to receive the book and say good-bye to the series in that sense. And I’ll have a lot of fun doing it.
The next Michigan trip, coming up on August 2, is necessary in order to see an old friend from Dyn-o-mite! get married to her longtime boyfriend. If you’ll recall, she was my primary sympathizer and rival in the sweepstakes to get out of Dyn-o-mite! first. I won that battle, but according to all the friends (there are five of us who would routinely hang out together), she’s won the war by getting married first. We’ve been together with our significant others for approximately the same amount of time, but she’s also younger than I am—in terms of female cattiness (which dominates this group, I have to say), she’s the clear, unrivaled example of successful womanhood. However, I make more money and my boyfriend’s hotter and buffer. I say I win!
Kidding.
To be honest, though, whatever rivalry that was or still is present is felt entirely by the other members of our group, not us. We’ve moved on—for my friend and her fiance, marriage was the next step; for IP and me, putting away for our old age is a more pressing concern than flower arrangements. More and more, I just want to get married in my parents’ backyard (as long as the next door neighbor doesn’t bark at all the guests, that is). While weddings aren’t always that fun, it’ll be interesting to see a western Michigan wedding—they’re supposed to be a bit more on the elegant side than the southeastern Michigan weddings I’ve seen. And I get to wear my new Tocca dress, which looks amazing on me (if I do say so myself). Open bar, too! Woohoo!
And finally, Portland. I’ve always wanted to do a Pacific Northwest trip, and this year, IP and I started to look into it seriously. We finally got around to buying our tickets last night—we ended up spending less than we had expected, which was a nice surprise. IP, travel planner extraordinaire that he is, will be putting together an itinerary of Oregon sites that we’ll hit. We plan on doing a circuit through the state, with some possible detours into California, Washington and Idaho. We might be traveling through Medford, Oregon, where my mother spent some time as a teenager; if the house is still there, we’ll drive by where she grew up. It’d be nice to stop by the high school and find her yearbook photos, but that might be a bit too time intensive to happen.
So, nothing fancy coming up in terms of travel, but everything should be fun. The next trip after that? I’m told I might be sent to the South Pacific for work, so we shall see.
