Update from the middle...

Greetings from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where my camera has official died. Today we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday. I met some cousins I'd never met before, ate a lot of chicken, and of course hung out with grandma. Working backwards from my last post, I did make it to DC where I stayed for about 10 days visiting fabulous friends and eating lots of apples. I enjoyed being greeted by good looking black men who have had the home training to actually say "Hello" as opposed to "Hey baby" or "Yo Shorty". I went salsa dancing twice, experienced the most sexy bachata experience of my life, had the perfect pisco sour, and stopped at every bookstore I saw. Then all too soon I was getting on a plane and flying to Madison.

"You can never go home again." Can't remember who said it...but it's not true. I can and do go home, usually once a year, usually in October, and even though something is always different, mostly Madison is the same...kind of flat, lots of lakes, beautiful foliage, beer and braut tailgate parties. I ate my way through the city, then drank my way through a 12 hour happy hour with some of my best friends from high school. I have friends all over, but they are not like these crazy women. These girls are shit kickers. They like to pick fights and slam shots and sing very bad karaoke. There are always lude jokes involved and inappropriate behavior that in most places might get you banned from a bar. But despite it all, they are my friends, my best friends, the people who know me like nobody knows me and somehow still love me and it was awesome to see them again. And now I am going to pass out because my Dad is waking me up at the crack of dawn and we are headed to South Dakota. More on that later...