Go blue. Fairy door town.

Last fall I started to notice little colorful doors here and there. Like between tree roots. Turned out that those are fairy doors and can be found everywhere in town - next to the main doors to fancy boutiques, in the library, by the entrance to the cinema and on trees. I had an 11K steps walk in town today to share the fairy magic with you too, dear reader.

Red Shoe Store has almost identical fairy door to the main entrance.

Fairy door next to the Pretzel Bell.

When a store closes, the fairies are not warmly waited anymore either and nobody leaves them sweets on their doormat.

Fairy door next to the Michigan Theatre (which is actually a cinema) entrance, where you can step right into fairy cinema.

Modern art loving fairy's door next to Jolly Pumpkin.

And then there are not only fairy doors, but whole Mystical Fairy Villages.

Mother Fairy's inviting door.

While taking pictures of the fairy doors, most of them on the street level, I praised the inventors, who invented the screen where you can see the object you are photographing (also known as phone camera) and I didn't have to lie down to focus the fairy doors peeking through the viewfinder.

Go blue. DIY terrace light

We are ready for the warm and romantic autumn nights :)

Go blue. Restaurant bills, rainbow and other daily topics

Few days ago, when going to the cinema, we saw the biggest and brightest rainbow. Why you can’t see it here at the moment, is not that I wouldn’t want to share the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with you, but rather that I forgot my phone home. I did remember it while we were backing out, but I saved myself the trouble of running back inside, because there was no wifi in the cinema anyway and we didn’t plan to go to any picturesque places. Well, plan again. Instead I can share the sunset picture taken in the parking lot of TJ Maxx.

At the beginning it was really unused to me that right after getting your dessert or answering the waitress question of how we are and if everything is under control with “We’re good” we found the bill on the corner of the table. It felt like turning on the lights in the cinema after the movie or watching your hosts yawning and changing into pyjamas - clear hint that you’ve been loitering long enough and it’s time to beat it. However, reading an informative as usually article recently about what do Americans wrong while traveling, I found out that it’s perfectly normal here that as soon as the waitress notices that they aren’t getting any more money out of you, the bills lands on the table. And in Europe, on the other hand, those poor American tourists can sit for hours and wait for the bill, because nobody is kicking them out without them asking first.

Last winter I mentioned the telenovela few times, that we started to watch - Jane the Virgin. In April we watched the last episode of the season three and patiently started to wait for season 4. But consulting Google-Know-All the other day, it turned out that there was still one more episode of season three to watch. We corrected the mistake in the same evening and since it ended with few cliffhangers, we are way less patiently waiting for January 2019 when they plan to screen the next season. #correctingmistakesmyass

I have already written about the doors of public toilets, sorry, restrooms here. Or to be more precise that those toilet doors made by the frugal Americans don’t reach the wall, but remain about an inch from the wall. Giving everyone, who wishes it, the chance to have a peek in. But more and more places have automatic flushing now. Which makes me wonder, if those rather big American ladies have tiny bladders. How else to explain it that every time, I’m still halfway done with my business, when the water is already flushing. Sometimes it even happens twice before I’m done.

Go blue. Like.

For my ear, used to the best Oxford English, the sound and way of speaking of younger generation here, mainly female, sounds like an old loudspeaker in train stations.

“Well, it’s like the …”

“Yeah, I know, it’s like OMG!”

“And then I looked like …”

“Like seriously?”

“Like I still can’t believe it, you know”

“OMG, I haven’t seen you like a week!”

Depending of the context the voice is either “sexy” nasal or shrill and screeching. Because, well, if you haven’t met like for several days, with a bit of yelling you can’t go wrong. Anyway, to get to the point, this “like” has taken over my speech. Like seriously. Each one of my sentences has at least one “like”. But I blame it on the fact that I’m not native speaker and more often than not, the “like” is there to fill the silence when I can’t find the right word right away and would need to dive into dictionary otherwise. Interesting tho, what kind of excuse do those young ladies have?

Well, anyway, we were like in the restaurant and Scott asked the waitress about crab burger. Turned out, our waitress couldn’t comment on that, because she’s apparently not eating seafood. We took it as a personal touch that the servers only recommend things, they have actually eaten and Scott decided to live on the edge and risk it with the burger. That case reminded me of a drugstore visit, about 10 years ago. I was looking for something for corn and asked for recommendation. They had band aid as well as cream. To what the pharmasist rolled her eyes so that it’s a wonder, she didn’t get dizzy and told me that she doesn’t know, because she hasn’t used those. I’m slightly confused, what good is a pharmasist that can only recommend medicine based on her own experience. Unless the pharmasist has a really weak health and is treating at least 10 different illnesses constantly.

Coming back to that restaurant visit, we happened to go to that same Carl & Lu pub, where they have the up-and-down quality tuna tacos. Anyway, we had learned from our mistakes and asked already before placing the order about the level of searness  of the tuna. The tacos that arrived on the table were identical to the ones, we had there the first time. For the main course I had the seared tuna again and asked them to bring the dressings on side (which they did… each in disposable plastic can just like the coleslaw that came with the tacos) and replace the mashed rise porridge with asparagus. Scott took the mentioned crab burger. We were satisfied.

Go blue. Gourmet

I think the food has been like poor relative here in this blog and obviously all the readers re interested in what we eat here.

We walked to downtown the other day to have quick dinner. Neither of the previously chosen places impressed us, so we found ourselves in No Thai. It a fast food kind of place with few locations in town. Airconditioner was turned so high that we went to eat outside before my shrips are frozen and covered with a layer of ice. We had chicken (not me) and shrimps. Tasted almost like in my main eatery on Koh Lanta.

The fish taco bought from the farmers market was same size as the beef taco in Ülo this summer, just three times cheaper.

Accidentally we found ourselves in a pub in Brighton last year and had the best tuna tacos ever - perfectly cooked medium raw thin slice of tuna  and few slices of avocado in a hard shell taco covered with dressing. Well, after shopping the other day we went back to that pub and ordered the same tacos. Scott also took some beef and and I had seared tuna with coconut rise and lettuce. The tuna in the tacos was totally overcooked and looked like a slice of pork. Tasted about the same as it looked. Then my seared tuna arrived, which was perfect medium raw. Covered with two types of bottled sauces. I removed those sweet and sour chili and mayonnaise from my fish and started to eat. It was perfect. Instead of rice, as it turned out, was something like mashed rice or rice porridge and after the first bite, was left untouched. Scott thought when looking at it that mashed potatoes are complimenting my tuna.

Walking to the town the other day, there was Cupcake Station on the way. Since they had rainbow soufflé cupcake as September special listed, that was what I walked out there with. Seva, the local vegetarian restaurant, was also planned last Friday and we shared two appetizers - sweet potato fries and Gouda tots. Both absolutely delicious and we had some left to take away too. Can't tell that we won't learn from mistakes - when we started to go there a year ago, we shared 4 appetizers and could barely move ourselves later.

On Saturday, a late lunch was planned with Scott's mom and aunt. Apparently the best fried mozzarella sticks of the continent can be found in Jonesville (about 1-1,5 hours away from us), that's where we went. Before the waitress managed to put down the menu, Scott already placed the order for 10 mozzarella sticks and a tray of fresh tuna slices. And a plate of onion rings was added to the order. We also tried to place the order for drinks, but every time someone voiced the wish, the girl ran without looking back to the kitchen and we managed to add another drink once she was back with the previous one. So there she was running back and forth until all four of us had gotten our drinks and also changed a lousy beer for the wine. Despite only trying a tiny bit of one onion ring, by the time, she came back to take the order for the mains, I was long full. The mozzarella sticks had a nice thin breading and the hot cheese was almost liquid, so melted. The tuna with wasabi and thick soy sauce was the star of the table. As said, they are pretty generous here with the sizes of portions, so once I was full of the appetizers, my tray with white fish, french fries and broccoli (my apologies, fresh veggies) arrived. I ate the fish. Hopefully the children of Rwanda will never know that I only had a bite of french fries. The slice of cake we shared among four.

Since last summer, Scott kept telling me that we need to go to Dairy Queen. It's apparently so classical American thing that I just have to try it. So, one day last fall, we walked there, it turned out that the season is over since yesterday and they are more than happy to welcome us back next spring. The same Dairy Queen that is right next to the main road and we passed at least once every two days. Well, at least we learned from our mistakes  that you shouldn't postpone today's ice cream until tomorrow and one day, driving back from Aldi, we stopped by Dairy Queen and took three ice creams. I took one. #justsayin

Go blue. Walks and runs with Bill.

I have to share my recent discovery! It's the audio books! I've always thought that those are more for the ... elderly people, who otherwise would listen to read-alouds in the radio, but I had to change my opinion here. I guess, I've mentioned that the closest grocery store here is the Busch's, where I get, when shortcutting through the forest, with 17 minutes. And despite of having pretty nice and fast way there, I'm not really happy with their prices. Aldi, on the other hand, where I like the produce section and prices, is way too far. Kroger, just 35 minutes away, can be seen as a compromise and also has the added bonus of TJ Maxx next to it. Two flies with one shopping. And 35 minutes is not really a lot of time. Barely 5000 steps one way. The actual downside of the route is that the shortest option is so boring that I would rather lye in the garden and watch grass grow. It's 300 meters to the main street and then 30 minutes down the straight street until it's time to turn into the parking lot of the store. And the street is not lined with best examples of architecture. Anyway, I've expressed my dissatisfaction with the route there few times and Scott told me to suck it up, we will not move closer to the stores, nor will Aldi open a store in downtown Ann Arbor.

I needed to go to TJ Maxx again yesterday and already standing there, shoes on, I got the idea of downloading an audio book. In Amazon it turned out that if I join the Audible Prime, I get two audio books for free. Joined the VIP club and downloaded a Bill Bryson. With less than 5 minutes I had the book, downloaded the app and started the book. All the way to the store I was listening to how Bill after 20 years of living abroad returned to USA and made a road trip to small towns on east coast.

I went for a run today and started the book again instead of the usual playlist. The people I saw on the streets, thought, I was smiling at them and waived all happily. I was listening the entertaining stories of Bill Bryson adventures.

Go blue. Local life.

Actually I had planned to share all those pompous halloween decorations once again - plastic skeletons, prize winning pumpkins, pumpkin leftover from squirrels, cheesecloth on bushes and little ghosts. But aint gonna happen - in September no-one but retailers care about the pumpkin party.

So, you’ll have to do with pumpkinless overview of what’s going on.

Obviously nobody is living under impression that I have moved to a metropole, but to give you an idea of closest neighbourhood, then one day while walking to the centre there was a blanket on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk and some 6-months old playing on it. The 2-year old, driving the SUV next to the baby almost ran over him, but the three adults, who were just loitering there, made some record long jump and took the careless driver down.

Running is getting more popular every day - around noontime the streets look like during the Boston marathon.

Also our little zoo in the backyard has been growing - few rabbits and hummingbirds stop by every other day. I’ve seen some bright red birds too, but I think, they were here last year too.

I still enjoy shopping here. I couldn’t decide yesterday, which jacket to buy, if at all, so I bought both of them. Tried on at home and will bring one back today.

We have new neighbours. With two dogs. Since we are talking about people, who work in the medical field, they make long days in the hospital and leave the dogs home alone for the bigger part of the day. The loud joy both of them express, should there be someone even within 500 yards from their house. Can’t really say that Scott still enjoys their happiness.

But no need to worry about that anymore. Because in addition to the new jackets I also bought a new laptop. The noise that hard drive makes overpowers even the loudest dogs in our ‘hood. Laptop will be sent back to Dell too. So, Scott’s issue with the barking dogs is kind of relevant again.

The neighbours on the other side are still the same, but have taken a dog meanwhile too. Such a cute one, average size. The dog will be carried to the backyard every morning, chained to the tree in the middle of the yard and there he’s lying on the grass all day long. He only moves along with the shadow of the tree to not to get a stroke in the plain sun. A plastic container, sorry the doghouse (at least that’s what Scott told me) is there too, but not moving with the tree, so obviously is not of interest. He also has a bowl of water and at least he doesn’t need to worry about catching cold from cold refreshment. If he would have a package of Lipton tea handy, he could drink fresh and hot tea out of his bowl.