Home...one of them

I kept messing up my words every time someone asked where I was going last weekend. Florida, Michigan, it seems like I'm constantly alternating between the two as the definition of "home" becomes more and more complicated. For this trip, my plane flew to the latter. It was just me and mom this time. I helped sort through the house, dividing everything into the good, the bad, and the good-but-not-good-enough-to-drag-hundreds-of-miles-south piles. On Friday, we labeled these leftovers at just a fraction of their original prices, piled them on wooden tables in the driveway and posted signs on the street that might as well have been an invitation for the lowliest of the neighborhood to get in their hoopdees and gather on our front lawn demanding that you give them that $2 set of plates purse for $1. That's right, we had a garage sale. And as much as I don't like shopping at them, I hate running them about ten times more. Seriously, if you can't cough up an extra quarter for that $1 purse, maybe you shouldn't be buying anything in the first place. And if you're driving a Lexus and want two of them for a dollar, I'm going to give you an extra dirty look. But we took what we could get and gave the extras to the next-door neighbors to sell in their own yard sale, including a gold-plated silverware set that their young son quickly claimed "for when he gets married." You know what they say about one person's trash.

That night, after a quick dinner with Lindsay and Trep, Carl, Michelle and I headed to downtown Royal Oak. Only on our way there, we decided to take a quick detour past the Magic Bag just in case the Mega 80s (the best cover band ever) was playing. The band's name spashed across the building's marquee, luck was on our side and we had a great time singing and dancing along to Journey, KISS, Devo, and lots of other goodies.

The next morning, after surviving a few more hours of haggling, we met Abbey's mom and sister for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Cedar Gardens. Long Island, at least in my area, seriously lacks Mediterranean food, which is so big in Metro Detroit. Good hummus is hard to come by around here, so I definitely got my fill when I could. That night, we visited another favorite, Trattoria, a local Italian restaurant that has an unbeatable marinara. Not that I'm at all lacking in Italian food in New York, but there's just something about the food there.

On Sunday, we went to a family reunion for my mom's side of the family, the Rielis. Actually, we found out the spelling prior to my great grandparent's move to the states was Riili. Now, that's a lot of 'i's. We also learned the names of the Sicilian towns they grew up in: Cosimo in Aliminusa and Frances in Cerda. I'd love to visit there some day with my mom. Especially since the family still owns a bar and a gelateria side by side. You can't get much better than that.