A Journey With Dilated Pupils

On Wednesday, Adrienne came into town. Enough said, right?

The day started off with an eye doctor appointment that resulted in dilated pupils for most of the afternoon - which sucked because I literally could not see anything within a two-foot radius of my head, including my Blackberry. After the appointment we were supposed to have lunch with my former boss, A.Smith of the Detroit Pistons. However, plans changed last minute because new Shock head coach, Rick MaHorn, called upon him to scrimmage his team during practice. So we killed a couple hours around Auburn Hills at the Great Lakes Crossing Mall.

Then we proceeded to the Palace of Auburn Hills and to the Pistons practice facility. Now I know what a lot of people say and think about women's basketball, and honestly I did the same a few years ago; but plainly put, these girls can play. Deanna Nolan breaks ankles and dunks - she's like maybe 5'10" people! We watched their practice for a bit, then Rick was ready for this men's team made up of A.Smith and some of his former Troy HS players and a couple current college players to body-up against the Shock. Unfortunately I didn't have my gear to get in the game, but I had a blast not trying to laugh out loud too much. On the opening tip Jake literally pushed down the Shock player as they were going up for it. Long story short, I laughed out loud, A LOT. Good game though: Jake hit what I believed to be a three pointer at the buzzer to win the game but it happened to be right in front of the Shock bench and they CLAIMED his foot was on the line. It ended in a tie.

After the practice, we decided to make a trip south to IKEA to pick out a dresser. We got stuck in traffic and Adrienne needed a potty break so we got off the next exit. Amazingly we just happened to be in Royal Oak. So I was like, "Dude, let's go to the Burn Rubber boutique!" So we did and met up with Cliff of BR real quick and visited a few other shops while there. Then we hopped back into the vehicle to make it to IKEA.

Adrienne was pumped because she loves IKEA and claims it to be the best playground for adults. I valued her excitement, but was still skeptical because she tends to be easily amused (just kidding, but at the same time, kinda not, haha). It was my first IKEA experience and was overwhelmed because I had no idea where to even start - it's freaking huge! Another long story short, we spent over 4 hours running around the store having a blast and getting lost, found a great deal on a dresser, and even had dinner and frozen yogurt. I LOVE IKEA!!!

From there we then jumped back into the vehicle and proceeded to drive, this time to Ann Arbor for Adrienne's best friend's birthday celebration. Her apartment was literally right next door to the Big House and Crisler Arena and I got both excited and disappointed. I don't know how we slept on the fact that she lived right next door to the arenas all year - the ONE year I didn't make it to any UofM game. The party was cool; I met a guy from Toronto who was a bike messanger for years until he got hit by a truck and was a vegetable in a coma for a month - crazy.

All this happened in one day from 9AM until 2AM with dilated pupils for most of it, some good food, and saturated with random acts of heavy laughter. Just another day!