Amid the throngs of suburbanites, a demonstration. Because sure, there’s PLENTY of parking.

Man, if you’re an editor? You don’t get paid enough money. I’m covering for my vacationing boss this week, and I’m just amazed at how much a modern editor has to think about. Content, of course, but also: Photos. Headlines. Tags. Scheduling and placement. Links. Where everything goes. It calls on a whole different set of skills, and if they’re rusty, well, in today’s world you can squeak “oil can” through your clenched jaw all day, and no one will hear you.

And did I mention I’m half-blind? Things are finally, slowly starting to resolve themselves in the ol’ eyeball, and the extra vision is yet another thing to get used to — the increased definition is almost worse than last week’s total blurrification. But of course, improvement is welcome.

And then this afternoon, another bike ride — faster this time. A hot sweaty mess when I got home, but hot sweaty mess means a lukewarm shower and a small scoop of ice cream for dessert.

We’re having a busy week anyway. Bridge has a new partnership with the Free Press, and it launched today with a couple of stories I’d be interested in anyone’s thoughts on. My colleague Ron had to be in California to accept an award, so we sent him down to Vallejo and Stockton, the largest cities in the U.S. to declare bankruptcy — so far. Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing is seen as a foregone conclusion, so that’s the angle for us. Californians? Thoughts?

(I think I swapped the links there — the Stockton story is linked to Vallejo above, and vice versa. But the first link is the main story, so you can start there.)

And with that, we are into the bloggage, I guess.

Frank Bruni isn’t my favorite writer by a long shot, but even when you strip away all the Bruni from this story out of Columbus, just the bare facts are infuriating: A gym teacher at a Catholic high school in Columbus, fired after her mother’s obituary mentioned her female life partner among the survivors. A parent dimed her out — anonymously — and that was that. I hope she sues, I hope she wins, and I hope she crushes that place like Godzilla.

A funny story out of Tampa on one of those sovereign-citizen types.

Finally, a slide show, via Hank: The Naval Academy plebes, for their final act of plebe year, climb a spire on campus that has been coated with grease. Yes, shirtless young men climbing a greased obelisk-like structure. Great pix.

Oh, so tired I am. Guess where I’m going?

Spring has finally deigned to arrive, and it appears to be a pretty good one. Saturday I rode in the Cycle Into Spring, a group ride put on by the same people who do the Tour de Troit in the fall. Whenever I think group rides are a waste of money, I think of the police escort and the wonderful feeling of rolling through under the red lights. Worth $25, in my opinion. Ten bucks extra bought lunch: Three sliders and two sides from Slow’s, the barbecue place.

All in all, a perfect morning. I’d planned to go to the Eastern Market early, but even at 7:30 a.m., the freeway exit was backed up for a quarter mile. I ducked out and opted for breakfast at the Jefferson Avenue IHOP, where one of Alan’s colleagues had to submit to a full body search to be seated after midnight one night when the tunnel was backed up.

No body search. In fact, hardly any other customers. But it made for a nice early breakfast. IHOP — the classics never change.

And the ride was quite nice. I went with a friend, who stayed to my right and kept the blind side filled with a friendly presence. Twenty miles in three hours. It was a cinch. Then sliders, then home, then a nap. And that’s what I call a Saturday.

How was yours?

I would have taken some pictures, but I’d recently edited this column, and am thinking you don’t always have to take a picture to prove you were there.

Although sometimes you have to take a picture. This is Jerry, who helped us get the mast up:

The wind vane at the top of the mast got whopper jawed in the raising, so Jerry went aloft to straighten it out. This was a new one. Brave Jerry. We tipped him.

Do I have some bloggage? I do:

The Atlantic photo blog delivers again. Great pictures.

A video of a wolf pack howling. Those of you who have cats — I’m interested to know how they respond to this.

What is going ON with this episode of “Mad Men?” If you have a clue, share.

Well, I found a better FalconCam. Campbell Ewald is an ad agency in Warren with a building that stands out in its field, so to speak, rising several stories over the usual inner-ring suburban low-rise sprawl. They’ve had peregrines visiting for a while now, but this year they finally got a nesting pair, and they have the HD video installation such a bird requires. The greatest-hits video blog is here, and the link to the livestream is here. The eggs hatched only this week, with one to go.

It’s really quite arresting, watching the parents come back to the nest with a dead bird in hand to do the regular feedings. I think they’re doing an eat-and-regurgitate thing for now, which makes sense.

As Campbell Ewald is an ad agency, the people running this are a little too cute for my taste. After only a day of occasional checks, I’m growing tired of the memes and anthropomorphizing, but oh well, it’s their camera. They can brand-build with it all they want, I guess.

Of course, now the 20th-century technology of Fort Wayne’s FalconCam looks pretty dim, but the chicks are older, and moving around the nest more, so there’s that.

And there’s bloggage:

A friend is doing some canning, and recalled the single best canning headline ever. Photo is just the lagniappe.

I recall the Freep slobbered all over this place when it debuted, so it’s only fitting they cover the inevitable failure. Yes, it’s another Mike Binder project, which I am shocked, shocked to see didn’t fly. Isn’t Los Angeles just DYING to eat shitty coney dogs? Binder obviously has passed the point of success — let’s call it the Binder Point — where forever after, no matter how many times you screw up, you can no longer fail. Lagniappe: At the time I’m posting this, the local “iconic” potato-chip brand name is misspelled in the story. Because it’s so iconic.

This happened to the son of a woman I worked on a project with a few years back. I get the feeling it happens every year, somewhere. Because BROTHERS.

Hump day is behind us, so let’s float down the other side.

It might be because I’m sitting here with one eye blown out from the dilation solution and the other with its smeary Macular HoleVision, but I’m thinking this will be my last blog until post-op. I’ve got some chores that must be done beforehand, and I’m going to do them.

But right now it’s a lovely evening, and I’m watching Alan install my new Shimano pedals on the new bike. A robin just went flap-flap-flap over my head, or it might have been a dragon. I feel really fucking weird right now.

“Don’t go out,” Alan counseled. “If you got in a wreck, the ER staff would be drilling into your skull, looking for the cerebral hemorrhage.”

Fortunately, for you? I have some great bloggage today:

Oh, wait — I have an update. The good eye with the floaters is merely having an age-related floater-thing problem. “No tears in the retina!” the chirpy ophthalmologist said, having lost her condescension from the last visit. Instead, she praised my good sense in having everything checked out 48 hours before the surgical event.

“So, am I just going to have to live with this?” I asked. FYI, my good-eye vision is of a translucent spider straddling a world speckled with black pepper.

“They’ll either migrate to another part of the eye, or your brain will learn to ignore them,” she said. Fucking bloody hell.

So, back to the bloggage:

My former congresswoman, reppin’ in Washington:

Washington — Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick said Monday she was ready to boldly go where others have not gone before and called for an international probe into space aliens.

After a day of hearing testimony from believers in alien life forms, Kilpatrick offered up herself to launch an effort with other countries to bring to light the existence of extraterrestrials.

“It’s important that we work with foreign governments,” an impassioned Kilpatrick said after she and five other former members of Congress heard nearly eight hours of testimony. “There’s been 10 or 15 already identified who have acknowledged this existence. I want to be part of that.”

If you can’t quite figure it out, this is her, out of a job, taking a gig with an alien-chasing organization that rented out the National Press Club to hold “congressional-style hearings” on extraterrestrial issues. Persons who resemble congressional representatives will then be YouTubed into eternity, scowling at witnesses giving valuable testimony on this vital issue. Extra-weird detail:

Also in the audience were a man and woman from Chicago wearing metal headbands with quartz to better conduct communication with extraterrestrial life.

All in all, I still prefer her to Mark Souder.

Those of you who are fans of Roy Edroso will enjoy this interview with None Other, which includes a clip of his band, the Reverb Motherfuckers. Roy bought Adrianne and me dinner when we were in Washington last fall, and I just lurve him to death. So there’s that.

Pinterest fails. Because Pinterest fails.

If Russell Brand really writes this well, I want to know why he’s a bleh musician and actor and not a writer. Because based on this, he’s a pretty fair writer.

Finally, I’m only a few chapters through The Prophets of Oak Ridge, but I’m really looking forward to the rest of it — a story of how three people penetrated the Oak Ridge Security Complex, and by “three people,” I mean a drifter, a house painter and an 82-year-old nun. So far, it’s a gripping yarn. Hope you enjoy it, too.

So that’s it for me. I have a big box of furniture to unpack, a lot of loose ends to tie up and a laser knife to go under. See you when I surface. Whenever that is.

Sorry for the late entry today. It was another evening out, although I had the distinct pleasure of driving home into the rising full moon, which registered not as a crisp round disk of light but rather roundish, with a smeary side. For days, I’ve been fretting about my upcoming eye surgery, wondering if I really, truly needed it. What’s a little smudge in one’s central vision? It’s only on one side, etc. Last night settled it. I want to see a rising full moon in sharp focus. Also, I’m seeing way more typos in my work these days, and I can’t handle that.

One more week. Then I will suffer for my sight.

But as I’m getting a late start here and really should be working, I’ll keep this brief:

We’ve had a bit of a dust-up here the last couple of weeks, right here in Grosse Pointe. A brand-new student club at one of the high schools, the Young Americans for Freedom — called that to distinguish them from the Young Americans for Slavery, I guess — announced they wanted to bring Rick Santorum in to speak. The national chapter had fronted them his $18,000 fee, and he was going to address the student body on “leadership.” This was originally scheduled for during school hours. Some parties objected to this, and it was abruptly cancelled. Then it was uncancelled, with an opt-in permission slip attached. It was, in other words, from beginning to end, an administrative fumble and a giant win for the Young Americans for Freedom, which lurves this sort of thing.

So then the day for the visit arrives, which was Wednesday. The speech was live-streamed. I didn’t see it all, but I saw enough. “A nothingburger,” went one description. And as you might expect, it went off without a hitch, but there was one hitch-ette: One of the kids at the school tweeted “Hey Mr. Santorum, would you sign this bomb for me?” I gather the kid is known as a joker, and he’s a kid, and while the tweet was thoughtless, you’d have to live in a police state to see this as a credible threat. Even the local police seemed more irritated than alarmed. But it couldn’t end there with a stern talking-to, a grounding and the suspension of the Twitter account.

No, now the Wayne County Prosecutor is getting involved.

Sigh.

OK, off to the mangle. The best email I got yesterday follows. For you non-journos, a style guide is the collection of individual style quirks of a particular publication; whether you capitalize The in The New York Times, say, or if Road should be spelled out or abbreviated. Sometimes they get really baroque, and the one from Penthouse magazine is a minor classic of the form. Anyway:

I’m working on our in-house style guide. It’s one of those projects that could turn into one’s life’s work, if one were so inclined. Really, there is no end to the crap that has to be explained. To maintain my sanity, I’m having some fun. I thought you’d appreciate this excerpt:

penultimate: Means next to last. Example of how not to use this word: “We were called the Rock Bottom Remainders, and when they write the penultimate history of rock ’n’ roll, we will not be in it.” Now you know something Mitch Albom doesn’t.

And you know what? She’s right.

Good day, all. Good weekend, all. See you Monday.

On edit: A good read on the Boston carjacking victim. Tasty morsel within:

The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes ML 350 and the iPhone 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs — all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night.

First (long) bike ride of the season was Saturday. Fifteen miles at a bit of a clip left me thinking:

1) God, am I out of shape.
2) Even for Detroit, this is a lot of broken glass on the street.
3) I need a road bike.
4) No you don’t. Get your ass in shape and stop thinking equipment is the answer to this scurrying-on-a-wheel feeling.
4) But I’m in my top gear and I’m scurrying! I need a bigger ring.
5) Shut up and look at the scenery.

So I did. It was a gorgeous, warm day, which in Detroit means all the snow is gone, but the detritus of the winter has not yet been cleaned up or overgrown. Belle Isle is not looking good, which makes sense in a bankrupt city I suppose, but a trash-strewn shame just the same. The conservancy folks haven’t gotten busy yet, so we’ll see what we have in another month. And even on a bad day, Belle Isle has the river and a breeze and lots of birds, so — did I say breeze? Whose idea was it to make eastbound the first part of this ride, anyway?

The bike will only come when the right Craigslist bargain drops into my lap. But for now, I think another couple of padded-crotch shorts are definitely in order. Plus a lot more time in the saddle.

All in all, it was a grateful-to-be-alive sort of day. I needed it.

Saturday night was the dilemma of the season: “The Ten Commandments” on ABC or a gorge on “Homeland,” screening as part of Comcast’s free-everything weekend? I did a little of both, savoring just enough of the restored Technicolor cheese-fest and then three straight hours of watching Claire Danes do her face-crumple cry thing on Showtime. “Homeland” has grown on me, although I can see it painting itself into a corner this season, but if ANYone think they’re going to spoil the second half of the season for me in comments, I will CUT YOU. It’s better than any other Showtime series I’ve seen, by a mile. There are those who like “Dexter,” but I watched it a couple times and meh. “Nurse Jackie” had me for a time, but then meh. Dollar for dollar, I’m still an HBO girl. And I hope that soon I won’t be an anything girl, because I’ll be out riding my bike so much.

I hope everyone had a pleasant Easter. We went to Toledo for lunch with Alan’s sister, then to the museum for a couple of hours. It’s a very good museum for a city its size, thanks to the Libbeys and other responsible local tycoons. I spent a little time with “Alex,” a Chuck Close canvas.

I wish I could afford more art. If I won the lottery, my indulgences would be, in order: Travel, art, land. Not a house, land. All I really want out of a house anymore is a fireplace and a decent kitchen, and not even that’s essential. Art-wise, you go through our house, and you can see our starving-reporter days (framed posters), then less-starving (framed prints), then photos, and a painting or two. I still like everything we have on the walls, whatever that means.

Do I have bloggage before I make dinner and we watch “Game of Thrones?” Why yes, I do:

Laugh-out-loud funny is Anne Lamott, describing dating in late middle age, something I hope I never, ever have to do:

…91 percent of men snore loudly – badly, like very sick bears. I would say that CPAP machines are the greatest advance in marital joy since the vibrator. It transforms an experience similar to sleeping next to a dying silverback gorilla into sleeping next to an aquarium.

…Yet union with a partner — someone with whom to wake, whom you love, and talk with on and off all day, and sit with at dinner, and watch TV and movies, read together in bed, do hard tasks together, and to be loved by. That sounds really lovely.

Who is killing the prosecutors of Kaufman County, Texas? (Texas has a Kaufman County? Who knew?)

In Detroit, “garden supply centers,” particular those with “hydroponic” on the sign, is a nudge-wink that means “medical marijuana will be in your future sooner than you think.” Apparently this is the same elsewhere, too, although for one couple, it just meant fresh vegetables year-round. To the police’s embarrassment.

Monday awaits! Enjoy your week, y’all.

Finally, sun. Finally, spring. Happy Easter to all.

First day of spring. Ah, the sweet smell of …nothing green in the air. Not around these parts. The high temperature didn’t reach the freezing mark. The sun came out for a while, but worked only a half day. The birds have been singing their springtime songs for a few weeks now, but other than a few mild days here and there, the weather hasn’t caught up.

But there was this:

Tilted Axes, a strolling band of electric guitarists, organized by Patrick Grant, a Detroit-born-but-since-relocated artist. Each player carried a little Marshall amp the size of a cigar box, hanging from his belt. It wasn’t much of a procession, but it was fun, and you have to admire anyone willing to parade around in 27-degree weather just for the hell of it. Look at those sad little clumps of snow clinging to the base of the parking meters. That’s late winter in hell.

I know, I know — in four months I’ll be bitching about the heat. But right now it’s cold.

Here’s a remarkable piece, and I’m sorry my Russian isn’t good enough to translate directly, but I trust my source: It’s photos of bears huffing gas fumes, and showing the results, i.e., a bear sprawled in the snow, looking much like a homo sapien huffer. Is the need to alter our consciousness the same across all mammalian species?

As for the “50 most perfectly timed photos ever,” I suspect some ‘shopping. But some nice pix, just the same.

Since we’re doing videos, here’s a great one: Donny & Marie singing some Steely Dan:

How can I top that? Well, I have a big story dropping at 8 a.m. I’ll add the link when it does. Meanwhile, enjoy the downslope of the week. UPDATE: Why young people don’t vote in Detroit.

Oh, and thanks to Charlotte for finding this: Welcome to Michigan, Elaine Stritch. If I ever see her in a coffee shop over on the west side, I think I’ll scream. She is SO BEST.

One thing I love about Detroit: All these ethnicities have their own food traditions. And they’re all sold in the markets.