Darth! Heidi! Niles!

First in a cluster of blog postings to appear in the next day or two, most of them related to the recent weekend in Michiana. Ah, glorious Michiana. Home of many strip malls, as we learned. The stretch from South Bend, IN, to Niles, MI, is replete with them.

But never mind, for Niles is also the home of friends: Darth and Heidi.

Yes, you wonder, I know: what sort of name is Darth? A nickname, of course. Darth is better known to our library school classmates and others by his real name, Conrad. But that, as you may guess, gets to be confusing in conversations among the four of us. Whether he approves or not, he is Darth, and Allison will back me up on this one!




Given the schedule of wedding events and things going on with Darth and Heidi, we had to settle for a quick visit with them at the library in Niles, catching up on our personal events, wishing for a future longer visit together. Funny coincidence: Darth is taking part in a community theatre production of Escanaba in da Moonlight, a play of a movie set in Conrad's (my Conrad's) hometown. Yooper jokes popped out for a minute or two.

And then we had to leave Darth to his work (Heidi, by then, was en route to Ann Arbor). At least he gave us a must-see/must-do in Niles recommendation before we left: Veni's Sweet Shop. Conrad and I had a little fun shopping in there, restraining ourselves somewhat. And, as a thank you to Darth, dropped off a little treat box with him from the shop before we drove on out of town.