Pizza at 3 AM

We spent three days and nights with Whitney last week in Ann Arbor. People gave me flak about going to Michigan where it’s so cold. But we were in a cold spell here and the temps were the same–cold, damn cold. But Michigan was much prettier as they have about a foot of snow on the ground and it snowed all three days we were there. Ahh... heaven for me, being with my daughter and having snow falling.

We did what we do with our kids-- Monte fixed a cold air leak with rags, a trash bag and painter’s tape. I did laundry going down three sets of stairs into the creepy basement where the washer and dryer are. We also did a bit of shopping and opened all the forwards we received because we had access to high speed internet rather than slow dial up.

Whitney gave a tour to prospective students and we tagged along. Ross, Michigan’s business school, has a new building that just opened. Quite a nice facility. And, though we may be prejudiced, we thought Whitney gave a great tour, pointing out not only the educational aspects, but also the after hours networking possibilities.

We went out on Thursday night and met some of her friends. All Whit’s male friends seemed to be named Mark, Joe or Mike, but it may have been the pitchers of beer we drank at happy hour. Thursday was also the coldest night we had and we walked quickly the half mile to the Sportsman Bar and Grill. It’s the main hangout of the grad students in the early part of the evening. By 10 or so, the grad students leave as the undergrads invade. You can tell the undergrad females because they are all in high heels and skimpy tops. The grad females are in sweaters and boots. Another difference between grad and undergrad students is that grad students look at you when you talk. Undergrads look over your shoulder when they speak to you, searching for someone else... someone more interesting, someone better, some future friend or date.

On Friday night Whitney cooked dinner for us and a couple of her friends and then we went to a Michigan hockey game. While we don’t know a lot about hockey, it was fun to sit in the student section. The cheers have definitely gotten more explicit. After the game we headed back to Whitney’s for more "antifreeze," talk, and laughter. About midnight, when I thought we should probably head to bed, we took off for a house party, meeting more friends. We ended up at Happy Pizza chowing down on pizza and bread sticks at 3:30 AM! That’s right, Monte and Jane with no dozing in front of the TV before hand were out enjoying pizza and drunken laughter at 3:30 AM, keeping up with the kids.

I want to take this time to apologize to Whitney for outing her. She is a great cook and I jumped in when Mark was praising her meal, and said "She’s a great cook. She’s been cooking since she was 6 and did all the cooking when she was at home." The look that she gave me let me know that I’d let the cat out of the bag about her cooking. Then the next day, the high cost of home repairs came up, I again outed her, "Has Whitney told you about her tools?" She informed us that she’d kept her cooking and tools a secret, but yes, she did have a wide selection of tools in storage. So I apologize to you, Whit. But at least I didn’t have any pictures with me.