My, my, but it appears we pulled it off. Fingers crossed — it’s not halftime yet — but it looks like the beat up old D actually put on a week’s worth of great parties public and private, cleaned up the streets and behaved itself enough that anyone who didn’t have a good time was constitutionally incapable of having one. Good gravy, Paris Hilton Herself was spotted in Grosse Pointe last week. If that isn’t amusing to you, well, go back to Seattle. I’m sure everyone in a position to care will be thrilled by the media reaction.

We had our share Friday night. I took Kate down to the Winter Blast after school, and we hooked up with Alan at the RenCen. To be sure, the Blast wasn’t all it could be — the snow had to be manufactured and kept melting, the dogsleds were modified with wheels, and we had to duck in and out of the warming tents not to warm up, but to get out of the rain. But. There was so much food you could have whatever you wanted with no waiting, booze equally plentiful and smiles? Oh, the smiles. Everyone was so happy. We were in downtown Detroit, and the streets were so thronged it was like VJ Day in Times Square.

But just in case you forgot where you were, there was a bit of violence.

Getting home was no picnic, though. We crammed onto a People Mover packed like Tokyo, and overheard a couple discussing how long it would take to get back to Campus Martius Park from their starting place, the RenCen.

“You’re, like, a block away,” said another passenger. “You could have walked there in five minutes. Where are you folks from?”

They looked sheepishly at one another. “Here,” they said.

Well, I’m glad they came, anyway. Maybe now they’ll come back.