I'm trying hard not to pretend // Allow myself no mock defense // Step into the night

Michelle ('My Belle'), the Pharmacist at my work is one of my all time heroines without any doubt. We've been working together there for 6 years now this July, never a dull moment. But really she has helped me along through life not only through smiles and laughs, but also by being tough as nails with me when I get off track and not giving my best, which I really appreciate because I know it prepares me and motivates me to reach for the stars in and out of work, she's like a surrogate Mom for real. She also helps me out like mad, she overpays me to do lawnwork with her coolness husband Mr. Bake and gives me gifts/rewards like U-M football tickets to Isaacs and I (where she graduated from) and playclothes to roll around in and an old receiver + record player that they were getting rid of for free. Hopefully I can convince Melissa to take it so we can listen to albums to and fro this summer.

I convinced Melissa to come out to the Tigs game this past Friday. I was very happy that she came, it way way made my day. Another baseball stadium she gets to cross off her list, I'm jealous but happy that she let me take her to the new Tigs stomping grounds for the first time. While we were waiting for Isaacs and Jenny to come up we got our pic taken with the mascot Paws, he tried to give her some sort of secret handshake, she was all stocked up and made him buy someplace else. Hahhah. It was a great time, we made fun of each other throughout and then the fireworks together afterwards. On the way home I put in the new Shins album for the first time (I decided I was finally ready) and I was really happy she was there with me.

Last night we all tried to get our best Major League impressions in when we all met up at the old High School for a softball spectacular. The ringleader, Jessica Brubaker ("Bluebaker") I've known through Isaacs and the others for years, and had known she was an A+ pitcher in the H.S. days. What I had not known until as recently as 2 months ago, was that she is (since her graduation with us in 2001) the current record holder for H.S. softball wins in the United States. In the whole country! I got my "Jessica + Brubaker + "United States + softball wins" on with yahoo and sure as can be there it is. Just more proof that every person I know is amazing. We all gave her a hard time about how we were going to hit homers off her all day and I was going to "get up there, kick off my kleates and take the biggest swing in history on the first pitch" and etc etc. It was really fun, Isaacs and I turned the greatest double play in the history of the sport, and as we started the bottom half of the 1st inning everybody literally froze at the same time staring at the horribly dark clouds blowing in from left field (they had been there for at least 30 min). You could feel the childhood terror rising in everyone, myself at the top of the list. Everybody did the ".....RUN!!", gathering, dropping and forgetting keys, phones and wallets running as the downpour began and the wind blew sheet metal off of the nearby roof under construction. We got back to Bluebaker's house soaking wet and laughing (I guess we were under Tornado Warning the whole time), played euchre (Isaacs and Higgo skunked Sarah Kasacaviges (sp? sounds like 'casa-cabbage patch') and rather than buying the case of beer as house rules call for, she did the alternative and ran naked around the house, holding a huge USA flag I hear) and talked about the summer that lie ahead, with raindrops pattering gently on the roof.