December 6

Waking up on the floor was a little bit strange. And I found out that when people aren't confined, sometimes they move around more in their sleep, 'cause Aric had rolled all the way off the mattress and he was on the floor right next to it, sort of snuggling up to the edge and that was cute. Meghan must have pushed him off, 'cause she was closer to the edge than the middle, and the two of them had taken the blankets with them and I didn't have any. I didn't really need them, 'cause the apartment was a little bit too warm and I still hadn't figured out how to change that.

I was kind of getting used to it, though, 'cause humans liked their houses hot, but I was a little bit worried that when I got back I wasn't going to be used to the cold and I'd be the only pegasus wearing a hat and scarf and the other ponies would make fun of me.

I scooted over and I didn't go under the covers but just nuzzled Meghan's back through them until she woke enough to roll on her back so that I could put my head on her breast, and then I dozed off again until she decided that she had to get up and pee, and that woke up Aric too, and he was really confused that he was on the floor.

Meghan kind of paused when she came back, and I saw her looking out the balcony window, even though there wasn't really anything there for her to see. And she kind of rushed back a little bit, and said that I probably should have closed the curtains, so Aric got up and went over to the window and looked out and said that nobody could have seen us because there wasn't anything over there.

So Meghan finally slid back out of bed and then got up and went over to the window, too, so that she could have a look, and she stayed behind Aric until she was sure that he wasn't lying, and then she stepped off to the side and by then I was feeling kind of lonely with both of them over by the window so I got up and went over there, too.

It was a really pretty day—the snow was still fresh, and the sun was just coming out. And you could see the lake through the trees and that was pretty, too. I thought that maybe in the summer you wouldn't be able to see much of it, though, 'cause of the leaves on the trees.

Aric said that we ought to go back to bed and welcome the morning the right way, and Meghan asked him if he could remember the last time he hadn't thought about sex, and he said that wasn't a fair question since she was naked and I was naked and anyways he was a guy and Meghan said that she was going to go out on the balcony and get a handful of snow to cool him off and he told her that it would be better if she waited until after to do that because he was worried about shrinkage. So we went back to bed, and after Meghan kept her word and got a handful of snow and even though he begged her not to she did it anyways, and that was really funny. He probably could have run away or fought her off, but he didn't.

Then the three of us crowded into the shower and Meghan was nice enough to let him warm himself up first.

After we got out, we all dried off but nobody got dressed, and me and Meghan went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

Since I had lots of food at my apartment now, we had to decide what we wanted to make for breakfast. Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn had gotten out my waffle maker and put it on the counter, so we could have waffles and I decided that I wanted to make an omelet, too, ‘cause we could all share that.

This stove was different than the one I’d had at my old apartment and at first I thought it was broken, ‘cause when I turned on the knob it didn’t make any little popping noises and no flame came out of it, even when I turned it all the way up. But then the coil of metal that the pans sat on started to glow, and that was how it was supposed to work. I thought that that was really clever, that the stove could work without a flame. It was probably safer for me, too, but I still thought it would have been a lot smarter to put the control knobs on the front and not behind the burners.

I had to have Meghan help me figure out how the knob should be set, ‘cause you couldn’t tell just by looking at it if it was making a lot of heat or not so much, and I didn’t want to burn the omelet. She said that it should probably be at a kind of medium heat but we’d just have to see what it did when it started cooking, because not all electric stoves were the same.

At least the waffle maker still worked like I remembered, so I didn’t have any trouble with that.

We had to make a couple of adjustments to the stove to get the temperature just right, and I let Meghan do that so I wouldn’t accidentally burn myself reaching across the burners.

Aric was planning to eat at the counter, since I didn’t have a table, but then Meghan said that we could sit on the floor and it would kind of be like they ate in Japan—I guess they don’t have tables over there, either. And then he thought that if we were going to, we could also use the futon as a table, ‘cause it didn’t have the mattress on it, so Meghan and Aric put down the ugly towels that they’d gotten to keep food from falling on the floor.

We had to be a little bit careful, ‘cause the futon frame had slats and if you set down a cup between them it would just fall through, but it worked pretty well.

Then once we were done eating Aric said that we could go to the hardware store and get some clips to hold the lights up to his house, and then we would put the lights up. And I said that I wanted to look for a birdfeeder while we were there, ‘cause I’d been looking out the big window and thought it would be a lot nicer if there were birds out there. I probably could have asked Jeff if I could have my old bird feeder back, at least until I went back to Equestria, but that would have been kind of rude.

So Meghan and Aric got dressed, and we went down to Winston and then drove down the street to the hardware store. And it was really interesting inside, ‘cause they had lots of tools and paints and whole rows of little bins that held nuts and bolts, and those had pictures on them so that you would know what was inside. There were lots of different kinds, because they were all meant to be used in different ways. I didn’t really know much about them and so it seemed kind of overwhelming to me, and Aric said that it was kind of complicated to explain, but he said that he could name every one that they had.

He looked around until he found some hooks that he thought would work, and were easy to install without using tools, and so he got some of those, and then we went looking for birdfeeders.

They had a couple of different ones but I didn’t like them that much, and he didn’t either. They were a bit smaller, so that they’d have to be filled up more often, and they didn’t have as big a perch for the birds. And I wanted one like I’d had before, anyway, so he said that later on we could go to Meijer, but first we were going to hang the lights.

So we all got back in Winston and he drove back to his house, and he went upstairs to Meghan’s room ‘cause that was the one on the front where you could open the window and walk out on the porch roof. And I told him not to walk too close to the edge ‘cause he could fall off and crash into the yew bush, especially since it was slippery with snow now.

Well, he had to go right to the edge so that he could show me how the little clips worked, although I’m sure I would have figured it out on my own eventually. So I started putting them in place while he went back through the window into her bedroom and then he came back out front with the boxes of lights that he’d bought.

He didn’t have to untangle them like John had had to, ‘cause when you got them new they were all neatly rolled up in the box. But he did stretch them out so that they wouldn’t tangle when we went to put them up, and after I’d gotten all the clips in, I flew down and started hanging the lights.

We didn’t get to test them out, ‘cause he didn’t have a cord to reach from an outlet to the lights, except for his really long extension cord that he didn’t want to use for that because he might need it for something else. So he decided that he’d get one from Meijer that he could use just for the Christmas lights, since we had to go there anyway.

David and Angela had come out while I was putting up the Christmas lights, and Meghan had taken a little movie of me flying up with strings of lights. If she kept getting movies, she was gonna be really busy putting them all on YouTube. I hoped that they wouldn't get mad for her putting up so many movies of me.

Angela had made us all lunch, which was really nice of her. And we all ate it around the kitchen table, even though they had to pull it out from the wall and Angela had to sit on David's lap 'cause there weren't enough seats for everyone. I offered to stand up but they said that I deserved a seat and she didn't mind sitting on his lap anyway.

David said that since Aric had decorated the outside of the house now he felt obligated to get a Christmas tree for inside and maybe a nice, traditional Nativity scene for the mantle. Meghan said that they didn't have a mantle, and David promised to improvise. And he said that we needed Christmas stockings, too, which are special big socks that you can put gifts in.

Aric asked if that meant that he wanted to come to Meijer, too, so that he could get everything, and David got all excited and asked Angela if we could go, and she sighed and said that we could.

So after lunch we all got in Angela's Oldsmobile—I said that we could take Winston and I'd ride in the back, and Aric said that was a good idea, but Angela said that her car would be better, and it had seats for all of us. Aric thought that if we got a lot of stuff, it wouldn't all fit, and Angela asked him how much he was planning on buying and he said he wasn't thinking of getting all that much but you never knew what you were going to find.

Aric sat in the seat behind her, 'cause she was shorter and had her seat forward, and I sat in the middle, and we went back to Meijer, and went right back to the collection of Christmas decorations.

I thought that David was going to buy a tree, but he just walked around looking at things and finally he said that his preparations must be made in absolute secrecy and told us to go somewhere else and then asked to borrow the keys to Angela's car. He said that he'd send a telephone telegram to Aric when he had gotten his materials, and then we could come back. I thought that was kind of strange, but both Angela and Aric said that that was what David was like, and it was best not to question it.

So we went looking for the birdfeeders. They had been where the Christmas decorations were now—that was called a seasonal section, and so it had themed things for sale. And I guess maybe not so many people thought about feeding birds in the wintertime, 'cause the feeders were now back with the other pets and you had to go hunting to find them, but they had the one that I liked, so we put that in the cart and also a couple of big bags of seeds, so that I wouldn't have to get more later. If I had some left over, I could give them to Aric for his feeder.

And then we all watched the fish for a little bit. They had small fish that were lots of bright colors and even some kind of glowy ones. Most of them were decorative fish that you could just watch swimming around, but there was also a big tank on the bottom that was filled with goldfish that were meant to be food. Aric said that his parents had some in a pond behind their house and the herons came down and ate them sometimes.

I'd never thought of having a pond for a bird feeder. That sounded like it would be pretty convenient, although I'd like bigger fish than goldfish to eat.

We got an extension cord, too, and then Aric went and looked at a rack of movies that they had. They'd put displays in the aisles to tempt you to buy things while you were on your way through the store, and he said that he was looking for a new copy of Lord of the Rings, 'cause he had a Blue-Ray player, which was a special movie record player. We looked, but couldn't find it and so I asked him what it was about and he just stopped and looked at me and said that I had never seen Lord of the Rings and it was his duty to change that. Meghan said that it was kind of long, and he said that it was time well spent and we were going to have to marathon it because that was an American tradition. And he said that he was going to find it.

But he didn't get his chance to right away, 'cause David sent a telegram that he had gotten his supplies and we could come back, so we went over to the Christmas aisle again and looked at the different kinds of Christmas stockings which were too big to fit anybody's feet. But that was so you could put more presents in them.

After we'd paid for our things and were walking out, David suddenly turned to Angela and asked her if he could have a penny, and she rolled her eyes and reached into her pants and found one and he went running off to the mechanical horse they have called Sandy, which is only a penny to ride. Aric said that if anybody asked, we didn't know him.

He was having fun, so I asked Angela if I could have a penny, too, and when he got done I put a penny in and rode Sandy.

It wasn't as much fun as riding Hoshi, 'cause it didn't go anywhere and just slowly rocked back and forth, plus it was made out of metal and that felt a little weird on my butt. But it was still fun, and a lot of people stopped to watch me, which was actually kind of embarrassing, especially since I had to keep shifting my wings to keep my balance. Sandy was narrower than a real horse and her saddle was slipperier than a real saddle.

And Meghan came over and as soon as Sandy had stopped she put another penny in the slot and so I got another ride, and when it was over I got off just in case somebody else who was watching wanted to ride Sandy.

A little boy came over but he wanted to ride me instead of Sandy, and his Mom grabbed him and pulled him away and scolded him which I thought was pretty mean. I would have given him a ride, and I wouldn't have even asked for a penny.

While we were walking out to the car, Aric said that it would be funny to see me on a mechanical bull, and I asked if they had them at Meijer, 'cause I was willing to try. He said that they had them at some bars and he'd have to look and see if there were any in Kalamazoo that did.

When we got back to Aric's house, David wouldn't let us see what he'd bought and then after he'd gotten it unloaded he said that we weren't allowed in the living room until he was finished with his masterpiece. Aric said that was okay because we were going to go back to my apartment so that we could hang up my birdfeeder and we were also going to go to Best Buy.

So we went back to my apartment and I hung the feeder on the balcony—there was a little hook in the rafter for it—and then I filled it up with seeds and then we all got back in Winston and drove to Portage.

He had to look around some, 'cause there weren't any where they were supposed to be on the shelf, but they had lots of other shelves that had movies on them, and it wasn't until he'd looked at them all that he decided that they didn't have any, so he said that we'd go to Target next, 'cause it wasn't too far away. Target was a lot like Meijer, but it was a little bit smaller and they didn't have as much food. They did have Lord of the Rings, though, and so he got it and then he said that maybe he should get The Hobbit, too, so I'd have the full experience.

Meghan said that it would be smarter to wait and see if I survived the first movie marathon before having a second, and he was kind of disappointed by that, but he eventually agreed that it would be smarter. He still bought it, because he said that he didn't have a Blue-Ray record of it, and even if I didn't want to watch it, he did.

It was getting towards dinnertime, and so we had to decide where we wanted to eat. Aric had food and I had food and there were also lots of restaurants if we didn't feel like cooking. Meghan said that she wanted to make something and I wanted to help, and Aric said that he'd stay out of the way if we did.

She said that she'd been planning on making a casserole, and she had all the ingredients back at Aric's house, so we went back there after Aric asked David if it was okay for us to come home. He said that the nativity scene wouldn't be ready until tomorrow but the tree was.

Well, it turned out that his idea for a tree had been one of the giant light bulbs wrapped in a daisy chain of shiny plastic trees and I thought it was actually pretty clever. It didn't look quite as pretty, 'cause there was just one big light instead of lots of little ones, but we could look at the outside of the house for the strings of lights.

Me and Meghan made the casserole, which was a vegetable bread pudding. She'd found the recipe on the internet and had thought that it sounded really good.

The boring part of making casseroles was waiting for them to cook, and you just got hungrier and hungrier as they did, 'cause you could smell them but not eat them yet. And then when it was done cooking you had to wait to eat it, and so after it had been in the oven for only five minutes I said that I was gonna go flying around the block to get a little bit of exercise.

I had to be careful, 'cause all of my flight gear was still at my apartment, and it was dark out. But the streetlights gave me enough light to see by, and I knew the neighborhood, so I stayed a little bit above the treetops and just flew a big circle out to where the dirt mines are and then back, and with the lights on the outside of Aric's house it wasn't too hard to find. And when I went back in there were only ten more minutes to wait.

The casserole was big enough that everyone could share it, and we sat the same way as we had for lunch. And it was really good, and filled me right up.

Angela and Meghan washed the dishes after dinner and I wanted to help but they wouldn't let me, which was kind of frustrating.

After dinner, Aric said that we ought to watch his other favorite Christmas movie, which was Die Hard. Angela said that it wasn't a Christmas movie, and he said that it was because it had a Christmas party and so it counted. And David agreed with him, and so we all crowded together on the couch to watch it.

Well, I didn't know what to think about the movie. There were some bad guys who took hostages and threatened them but what they really wanted was to rob the skyscratcher and then John McClane decided that he was going to fight them, and so he had to shoot them one at a time, and there were lots of explosions and McClane got hurt a lot but in the end he finally wound up killing all the bad guys, who weren't smart enough to run away when they saw that things weren't going their way. And the police mostly didn't trust him, even though the police are supposed to help people. I guess in the end it all worked out, though, 'cause the bad guys wouldn't get to hurt anyone any more, and the police finally figured out that McClane was a hero. And I also learned to stay away from helicopters because they could shoot at you.

I thought it was kind of strange that all the Christmas movies had robbers in them but the Christmas pageant I'd seen in Cripple Creek hadn't, and Meghan told me that most Christmas movies were not like these and maybe I should see a proper one, and Aric said that Scrooged was good, too, and she said that wasn't what she meant, and she was going to further my education into human Christmas customs, and Angela agreed with her and said that tomorrow night we'd watch a proper Christmas movie that everyone would enjoy.

Then Aric said that we ought to go back to my apartment and christen it again, and I said that we already had a bunch of times, and he said that one more time wouldn't hurt. Meghan said that he just wanted to see her make breakfast naked again, and he admitted that that was a big advantage to my apartment, 'cause nobody had to wear clothes if they didn't want to.

So Meghan went upstairs and got some clean clothes to wear tomorrow and when she came back down she told Aric that she'd gotten some clean clothes for him, too, and then we got in Winston and drove back over to my apartment. And once we'd turned off Stadium Drive, Aric said that I could steer and use the gearshift.

It was a little bit more difficult, 'cause none of the roads around the apartments were straight, and Winston didn't behave like a Go-Kart, but I still made it to my building without crashing and I even put Winston into a parking space but then Aric had to fix it 'cause I hadn't gotten between the lines like I was supposed to.

We went upstairs and Meghan and Aric got undressed for bed right away, and the three of us sat together under the covers for a little while just talking and then me and Meghan decided that we'd let Aric be in the middle and the two of us would see if we could wear him out.

Next Chapter: December 7 [Snowclouds] Estimated time remaining: 8 Hours, 3 Minutes