You finish the first day and those wings, they vanish like they've never been and you land, carefully, gingerly, in your sandals on your injured left foot. You call two of your oldest and most absent friends, who are in a genteel suburb a little to your west, and agree that dinner should be later rather than sooner.

You are late. His photographic memory was of a Detroit that no longer resembles the Detroit of today, and the library is closed. There is no parking, and you are achingly aware that you are late. You are failing before you can even walk in the building, and the horrific sensation of falling is claiming your stomach even as you walk toward your classroom.

You have a classroom. That'll be one square inch of stomach lining, please.

It ends with a shiny new Detroit terminal, and the most expensive rental car you've ever arranged for. You pass the giant tire, a covered-up Ferris wheel that seems strangely metaphorical for this collapsing city, into one of the strangest urban areas your home country has to offer.

You are keenly aware that you are absolutely alone, and you know you have fewer than twelve hours to call this whole ridiculous set of shenanigans off.  You are not a teacher; you are the daughter of one, and you ran screaming from that profession as far as your geeky, chubby legs could carry you.

Start simple. A cherry limeade and tater tots will do, eaten in a silver car that quickly heads further south along a freeway very familiar to the both of you.

Dress it up. Put on your red shoes, your best pearls, your genie pants and go, go, go until you can't walk, can't think, can't stay awake. Watch them say "I do." Say goodbye. Let your friends take you away afterwards, where you sleep in the car, lulled by the freeway, for nearly two hours.

Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.
- from The Music Man (thanks, Katie!)

Or ...

The cheese dances in the park after the seance.
(Thanks, Rachel. We'll come back to this one in a few months.)

There is silence, scented with bergamot, and a cup of tea that more than one friend has told me whose leaves smell "more like a big sweaty guy named Earl than some proper English tea called Earl Grey."

In the past month, the angle of the sun has changed enough that the guest bedroom now sees bright slats of midafternoon light. For the sixth autumn straight, the cats have made it a point to sunbathe and drowse amidst the motes. They doze in tangles of brotherly paws and tails, kitty-snoring into each others' ears amidst the fresh-folded laundry.