The Highs

Late, I know, but as promised here are the highs. Having Bill around for ten out of eleven days was pleasant, and gave us the most "normal" week and a half since we moved here. Bill's cold kept him from being TOO active, but he still walked his dog, puttered in the shop and took me on a short excursion one day.

Christmas Day started a little frantically, giving the dogs their Christmas presents. Jerry was not patient at all!  He was "mine! mine! mine" with ALL the toys and goodies! Bill seemed to like the blue fleece hoodie I gave him, but he was a little annoyed that I hadn't noticed the envelope on the tree with my name on it. I'm sorry, honey, but you put it on the OTHER side of the tree than the side I always see!

He had gone to Gladwin and stopped at Riverwalk Place and bought a gift card for me to the Oasis Salon and Spa for $150, plus there were $5 coupons enough for another $25! I was blown away! I'm pretty sure my helpers told him to get that for me, but he took the idea and ran with it!

We had a nice but overpriced buffet dinner at the Doherty in Clare. I saw an elderly, senile old gentleman that I used to know from my old church; he was there with his family. I'd heard his wife had passed away several weeks before, and I gave him a hug and told him I was sorry to hear the news, and that I hadn't heard until after the funeral. I was tickled that although he couldn't remember my name, he knew where he SHOULD remember me from and that he really liked me. Then one of the waitresses was Debbie, a woman who tried a secretarial job once that she wasn't really capable of doing, and I guess she thought I was kind to her at the time because she certainly seemed glad to see me! We had really fabulous service for a buffet dinner, I must say!

The day after we had our furnace installed, we decided to go to Ebel's General Store in Falmouth. We'd both seen many local commercials for the store but had never been there, and weren't exactly sure where Falmouth was either. It's one of those odd little places that is too small to be a destination, but isn't on the way to anywhere, either. No main roads, just a slow spot on a zig-zagging county road somewhere between here and Cadillac. We saw a sign for the store but no front door, so Bill drove around the block looking for one. The building WAS pretty much the whole block, and we found the parking lot and entrance hiding behind a restaurant--you almost had to already know where it was in order to find it!

Once inside the store, you are greeted by a flight of stairs leading down to the hardware section. I am sure there is an elevator of some kind down to that level but we never saw one. Bill found some parts for his mower right on the shelf that he always has to special order from any other store, so he bought one while we were there. The main floor features a clothing department that carries mostly Woolrich brand clothing (read that as: nothing big enough for me so I didn't even look), a giftware department, a small grocery store and a HUGE meat counter!

They make their own sausage, summer sausage, beef sticks and other meat sticks, jerky, smoked hams, and probably cure their own bacon. We bought several flavors of summer sausage and jerkies: some were elk and venison! We also bought a NY strip loin,which they sliced thick for us and trimmed off the larger chunks of fat. It was only about $3/lb, how could we lose?

On the way home, we decided to stop following the Tom Tom directions and take a "short cut" through Leota. We ended up driving several miles down some dirt roads, but we did eventually end up in Leota.
I am glad I didn't have to go there on my own, because I don't have GPS in my car!

More on the meals: After we were done shopping at Ebel's General Store, we cut through the parking lot at had lunch at a restaurant called Duane's. It is the building that prevents us out-of-towners from finding Ebels' front door. It was a nice "Mom's Home Cooking" kind of place, and we were lucky it was there because the town doesn't seem to have so much as a Subway!

The day after Christmas, my sister and her husband and son came up to exchange gifts. They arrived half an hour earlier than their "normal"time, and were all excited to go eat burgers at Pudgy's for lunch! Then we all opened our presents, chatted a bit and they took off again for Novi. I'm glad I've decided not to work myself silly preparing a delicious meal if they are only going to stop by long enough to eat and run.  Funny thing happened while we were there: the man who waited on us, probably one of the owners or a relative, is no one I've ever seen before in my life, but when Bill and I walked in a few minutes after the Klanns did he greeted me (not us, me) like I'm an old friend. Later my brother-in-law commented about how quickly I seem to be making friends here in Harrison, and how nice that must be! Cracks me up.

Burgers were great, btw.