I love you, Detroit (Reprise).

On Monday, Brian and I will be leaving wild and wonderful West Virginia to embark on our epic pilgrimage to Hockeytown, and we are so totally and completely stoked.

The trip is part of our celebration of annivirthdaysmas, which is my way of telling you that I'm a complete fucking nerd who enjoys combining the words anniversary + my birthday + Christmas (oh, boy, and let me assure you that this is not the first year I've used that little ditty). Basically, those three occasions fall in the course of fewer than two weeks, so we like to do one big, awesome thing to acknowledge the entire triumvirate.

I've been working on this post here and there, but honestly, I've tried to put it off as long as possible because I want to be able to deal with the final days back home as calmly as possible (like that's going to happen). Anyway, here it is; my apologies for the loquacious title, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Itinerary for Detroit/Things I Love About Detroit/Awesome Things That Need to Happen in Detroit While We're There
1. Starting with the obvious: Holy shit, we're going to see the Wings play IN PERSON. Typing that, it sounds ridiculous to me to be flipping out about seeing the team that I write about on an almost daily basis, but I feel like an ADHD-diagnosed six-year-old when I think about it. Sigh. Words can't express how excited I am for this.

We'll be at the St. Louis game on Wednesday, the 9th, and the Anaheim(!!!!) game on Friday, the 11th. A couple of notes on this:

a. I can't tell you how utterly disappointed I was to discover that only the first couple thousand kids get a Wings Zamboni toy at the Blues game. My first thought is that I'm pretty good at passing as a twelve-year-old, so I know I could pull it off, but that opens the door to starting a ruckus when it comes time to start downing some brew. My next inclination is to bribe and/or intimidate a unlucky recipient of said toy. Anyway, if you hear of any weird arrest stories that night, you'll know what's up.

b. I can't wait to be able to boo the Ducks in person. I'm girding my loins for this--gearing down and keying up.

c. Give me enough drinks, and I will star in a video that will promptly go up on this blog under the tag "dance dance assholes". (You know how I feel about dancing fans.)

2. Tim. Motherfucking. Hortons. Yes, I have done this before. So what? I have no pride. I don't care if it makes me sound like Ken Hitchcock's long-lost daughter (or lover...or both--OK, that's too gross, even for me). But the chocolate Timbits = the best thing in the entire fucking universe. The closest Tim Hortons to where we live is in Wheeling, which is almost 3.5 hours away. And the thing is, people from here who have never experienced the awesome goodness of Tim Hortons have no idea; they look at me like I have seven heads when I insist that they've never had a donut like this before in their entire lives. All we have are Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts. Not. Even. Close. I can't wait to stuff my face with Timbits. (Sickos, I said Timbits, not Tim's Bits...I don't even know who the fuck Tim is. Calm down.)

3. We get to spend approximately six hours on the PA and OH Turnpikes! [Item #3 intentionally omitted.]

4. Oh, Michigan, you call your liquor stores "party stores". I like to party. One word and one word only: Kismet.

5. Speaking of hooch, I don't know if you guys have any idea how ridiculous alcohol laws are around these parts. West Virginia itself isn't so bad, but because we live in the eastern part of the state, we often find ourselves out of state and therefore subject to the ridiculousness that is Virginia and Pennsylvania. Virginia makes you buy your stuff at state-run ABC stores--imagine being an underage college student and trying to pass off your fake ID with the stringent bitchfaces they employ there. Pennsylvania's even weirder: Imagine you want to buy a six-pack of your favorite brew. (Or, you want to buy me some, in which case, I'll take some Saranac Adirondack Lager, and good luck finding it. If not, Molson Canadian will do just fine, especially since we'll get to ask each other amazing would-you-prefers.) Anyway, you waltz into what appears to be a full-tilt liquor store and peruse the coolers looking for the goods, but alas! None to be found--only liquor and wine are available at such places. To purchase beer, you have to seek out a bar that does off-premises sales.

Michigan, I love you: Beer, wine, and liquor are available in your neighborhood Meijer. (For us back East, Meijer = all-purpose fun store, along the same lines of Target or K-Mart or Walmart.) Amazing. Haven't had this much exposure to the ability to get my drunkface on, snag a jumbo box of extra-special ribbed condoms, browse greeting cards to send to my grandma, stock up on Oodles of Noodles (you know, for the apocalypse), and pick out an entirely new wardrobe since visiting Brian during the early days of our relationship when he lived in Omaha, the only other place I've ever been where liquor is sold in box/grocery stores. God bless the Midwest.

6. Brian gets a front-row seat to a concert featuring Natalie's covers of all the greats, including, but not limited to, Britney Spears, Cher, M.I.A. (I do the gunshot part on "Paper Planes" REALLY ridiculously well, pretty much a carryover from my days in the 'hood), Lady Gaga, and well, you can imagine the rest. Interpretive dancing via "seat grooving" will also ensue. [Item #6 also intentionally omitted, although not for lack of existence--mostly so Brian doesn't back out on this awesomely long road trip upon experiencing a massive case of cold feet after reading this. Shhh...]

7. I want to get a bicycle thrown at our moving car again. I am not joking. This happened to us the last time we were in Detroit--actually, it happened after we left the bar after the game. We were driving back to our hotel, and some alleged homeless (but not immobile!) dude slugged an empty glass bottle at the moving car, but when he missed (by a mile), he proceeded to pull the bike out from under him, and we thought he was just doing a stunt and that he'd hold on to the handlebars, but instead, he let go of the handlebars and straight up threw the bike at the car. We were driving fast enough that it missed. Sure, laugh if you want, but come on, what would you have thought in a situation like that?! I mean, really: Have you ever met a homeless person who didn't try to entertain you endlessly with his/her glorious feats, such as reinterpreting the Flobots' greatest hit? And you want to judge me...

8. I want to go to Pegasus Taverna again and get the flaming cheese and have people yell "Opa!" at me. I love that so much. Now that I think about it, I might apply "Opa!" to my everyday life. It would be the perfect antidote to tedious days at work. Exhibit A: Some sumbitch attempts to give me the business on the phone by demanding last-minute that I pull some paperwork out of my ass? And now I want to tell him to go fuck himself? Why do that when I can just light something on fire and scream "Opa!" instead? (Just the thought brings a smile to my face--never mind the fact that crazy rednecks would have no clue what the hell I'm talking about. Win-win situation for yours truly.)

9. I saw this thing on Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations about feather bowling at Cadieux Cafe. Can somebody please shed some light on this for me? What the fuck is feather bowling? Can anybody do it? Is it fun? Lame? Sketchy? All of the above? I'm totally intrigued. I mean...it's called feather bowling, and it's not even played with balls, but with these crazy cheese wheel thingys. Amazing. I fucking hate regular bowling, but I could really get behind this if it's half as excellent as its name implies.

10. Basic enough, but I want to see snow. Lots of it. It hasn't snowed here yet. I love snow.

***

Despite my wisecracks about hillbillies and whatnot, I love where I live. West Virginia is an amazing and beautiful place. But there are so many things equally wonderful about Detroit and Michigan at large. Brian and I cannot wait to return. I haven't slept in a week, I've been so excited. (And we ran out of quaaludes because Brian went overboard. Damnit!)

If you guys have any suggestions about restaurants, bars, landmarks, etc., that we should check out while we're there, please, please, please comment away. We'll be there for almost a whole week, so we'll have plenty of time to explore.

Also, if any of you scrappy people are going to be at either of the games, definitely let us know so we can say howdy to you during intermission or something. And fear not, young grasshoppers: Sure, this blog is ridiculous, but we're not sketchy individuals. As far as we know, neither of us has any relatives in Michigan, so you don't have to worry any bodily inappropriateness--we are second cousins West Virginians, after all. Oooooewwww...

Wings beat Kings, 5-2.

Woohoooooooo.

--The biggest news by far is that Nicklas Lidstrom scored his 1,000th career point tonight, becoming the second Swede and first Swedish defenseman to do so. He scored two assists tonight, one on a goal by Tomas Holmstrom, the other on a goal by Henrik Zetterberg. Speaking of which...

--Zetterberg scored a goal and an assist tonight.

--Ozzie did a great job. There really wasn't much he could do on the two Kings' goals. He prevented a couple of nice scoring chances the Kings had, especially toward the beginning of the first period.

--I thought the Wings really brought their A-game for most of the third period; it finally felt like we were watching real Wings' hockey, with the exception of the penalties, but hey, the PK was pretty solid.

--I can't believe Tomas Holmstrom is leading the team in goals. He's the biggest boss that I've seen thus far. (Yeah. I went there. You liked it, too.)

--That move by Todd Bertuzzi that set up Kirk Maltby's goal was just awesome. Kirk Maltby has two goals so far this season. I'm just saying.

--Was it just me, or did Brian Rafalski look like he was ready to cry when the refs called a penalty on him? Regardless, he scored his first goal of the season with an empty netter at the end of the game. His expression after the penalty call was still funny as hell, though.

--To me, Davis Drewiske = Davis Drewski = guy whose unfortunate surname sounds like a nickname a fratdouche would coin for himself.

--Watching FSD via Center Ice really, really, really makes me crave Tim Hortons. Midwesterners and Canadians don't know how good they have it. The closest Tim Hortons to here is 3+ hours away. Boo. No matter what Southerners tell you, Tim Hortons is always > Krispy Kreme.

--I do not, under any circumstances, approve of the organist at the Joe playing the theme from The Addams Family. Unless we acquire a player by the name of Adams/Addams. Or, as Brian put it, unless we acquire a player who's just a hand.