Highlights of Our Recent Trip to Michigan (20 cents)

Detroit:

1. The restaurant in Greektown which, in spite of its menu, had no fish tonight. At all.

2. The suite at the Athenian Plaza Hotel, a converted warehouse, with frosted glass doors into the hallway, so you can see the outlines of people inside, with frosted glass doors between the bathtub and the sleeping area with the same results, where the living room (ha!) and the sleeping room are separating by four steps, which are unlit at the top, and with the bathroom on the upper level and the bedroom on the lower, where there are gigantic round pillars in the middle of both rooms (just sitting there)and where $20 can get you valet parking, which means that they take your car right across the street to an $8 lot.

3. My cousin's very nice four bedroom coop in a highrise building, with glass walls on two sides and views of the U.S. and Canada, which she hopes to be able to sell for $125,000. (that's about what a parking space costs here)

Bay City, Michigan

1. The omelets at the omelet shop which look so much better on the menu than on the plate.

2. The Bay City Antique Center, which has about 400,000,000,000 things for sale, not one of which you would want in your house.

The Traverse City, Michigan Area.

1. Where the Bluebird Restaurant in Leland serves most things "in the Bluebird style" (which appears to be some sort of fried), but has on the menu whitefish which can be either broiled or served in the Bluebird style. When I asked the waitress how it was broiled, she said that "it is really good in the Bluebird style, and that is what we are known for." But I said, well, I really just want it broiled. And that is how I got it and it was very, very good, and I told her so, that she should not be afraid to recommend it that way. And she answered: "we are known here for the Bluebird style and if I recommended it broiled, I might lose my job". I told her I would not like to see that happen.

2. How about the amorous couple in room 17, who kept everyone else awake at night?
(No one we knew, I am happy to say)

3. Where we had lunch at the old asylum (now being converted into any number of things) and discovered that the food wasn't any better now than it was when the hospital was in full swing.

4. Where in northern Michigan, the calendar said October, and the thermometer July.

5. Where our restaurant on Torch Lake couldn't serve us because they had a complete power failure, but we were served in the same owner's restaurant near Traverse City, which had the effect of saving us about 50 miles round trip.

6. Where my one friend gets up to go swimming every morning at 5:45, and another is an expert on wine, but never touches the stuff.

7. Where the Tapawingo restaurant was told that they could choose our pre-meal appetizers and decided on rabbit pate and fois gras.