Club Wolverine Waterfest, Jan 31, 2009

Greetings from the University of Michigan Graduate Library! I swore I would never step foot into this den of iniquity, but hey, ya gotta get out of the cold sometimes. And they have free internet access.

Why are we here? It's not a very long story. The idea was that, while Lexy was swimming this morning, Sydney was going to make good use of her Saturday morning and spend it researching a topic here at la bibliotheque. We thought they opened at 8, but they didn't open until 10. So, poor Sydney had to suffer through the swim meet at Saline High School.

Lexy did well today. She swam four individual events and a relay. Her four events were the 100 I.M., the 100 Backstroke, the 50 Breaststroke and the 50 Free. She also swam the breaststroke leg of the 200 Medley relay.

In the 100 IM, she got a best time of 1:34.79, and in the 100 Backstroke she added a lot -- about eight seconds. Not sure what happened there! In the 50 Breast she also added time (about two seconds, to 51.93), but finally, in the 50 Free, she lost .02 seconds for a best time of 35.65. The girls finished 8th in the relay, adding about 5 seconds to their best combined time. See below for the links to all of today's videos.

100 IM Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9i-lsIcgNg
100 Backstroke Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ywmhuFCjug
50 Free Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA739axrN_E
50 Breaststroke Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeqVuul8h4ks

The meet ended at about 12:30, so we were all hungry for lunch. Sydney suggested a place that she had heard about from a friend who spends a lot of time in Ann Arbor. So we plugged "Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger" into the GPS, and off we went.

Crazy Jim's is in the heart of Ann Arbor, at the corner of Division and Packard. As I turned the corner and got my first glimpse of the "joint" I recoiled. "Eww, Sydney, I don't think I want to eat there!" To which she replied, "C'mon Mom, where's your sense of adventure?" Famous last words.

Welcome to Blimpy Burger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOc8_ngYZ3ss

Crazy Jim's advertises that they're "cheaper than food," but I beg to differ. After ordering four double-burgers (they're MINI) an order or fries, rings and a few sodas, it was as much as we would have paid anywhere. We waited for about 15 minutes in a line of about thirty, until it was our turn to make fools of ourselves at the counter, where we OBVIOUSLY had no idea how to order. The burger guy said "Don't talk to me about cheese!" He also whined at me about taking a video.

Whiny burger guy video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqV-Eem5S9A

Let me also add that the line winds through the tables and chairs, which are bolted to the floor and makes it nearly impossible for anyone to get in or out. People were a lot smaller in the 50's! We also got admonished by the cashier for having Lexy sit at a table while we ordered. There aren't a lot of places to sit, and I guess it's against the rules! Whatever. And, the burgers were "OK."

Walking back to the car, belching, hiccuping and feeling generally sluggish, I announced that everyone would be having salads for dinner! The response was lukewarm at best.

With all this grease now coursing through our rapidly clogging veins, we headed back over the library, dropped Sydney off, and thought about what to do. Lexy and I donated all my change to another parking meter and set off for the University of Michigan Museum of Art. The museum is only half a block away from the libary but we were frozen by the time we got there. Correction, Lexy's hair, which was still damp from the swim meet, was frozen. And yes mom, she WAS wearing a hat.

The Museum, of course, is closed until March! The Michigan Union was across the street so we darted over there and asked the woman at the desk if there was anything open. She mentioned the planetarium on the other side of The Diag (that's U of M slang) and it just looked too far to walk in the cold and wind. So we hoofed back over to the library, where we sit now, me blogging and Lexy getting caught up on her Webkinz miniature golf.

The question remains: where is Sydney? Lost in the stacks in the U of M graduate library. She's doing research and refining her topic for her IB paper. That happens to be something along the lines of post-World War II reconstruction of European cities. But what type of reconstruction? Architectural? Political? Cultural? I suppose we must wait.