In December we did a photoshoot with a local t-shirt company called Detroit Respect – two dudes making apparel to promote the good things in the city. It was really fun to play around and try out new poses and I even got to take that comfy tank home with me. Seriously one of my favorites now.

Take a min to check them out >>>

Mandy and I took a little field trip the other day to visit Hamtramck Disneyland. From 1992 to 1999, Ukrainian immigrant Dmytro Szylak built this art installation in this backyard. Supposedly at night everything lights up and parts of it spin around. Hamtramck also has a huge Polish population so post-photo session we headed over to Polish Village Cafe for pierogi and dill pickle soup (which I’m totally still craving).

Last night as my sister was leaving the house she mentioned she was off to the Tigers game. It was a looking like a beautiful night, so I texted Nicole to see if she’d be my date. Can you believe she’d not only never been to a Tigers game, but she’s never been to a professional sporting event at all?! (For those of you in the same boat – get ye to a baseball game this summer!)

We headed downtown and bought cheap tickets, which actually turned out to be pretty good except for all the homers whizzing past our heads! I explained that people walk around selling beer, so you don’t even have to leave your seat and when she started singing take me out to the ball game I got all excited saying “Just wait for the seventh inning stretch, everyone sings!”

We got rained on a little and the Tigers lost, but she was totally sold on hanging out in the sun, watching cute butts and drinking, so I’m pretty sure I have a game day buddy from now on :)

Sunday we got up at 7am to load the rig and headed down to the Riverfront to showcase alternative forms of exercise at a 5k for literacy. It was just a little freezing being right on the water, but we had a blast anyway. Lots of people stopped by to hoop and watch us fly and even a few students showed up to play and show off all they’ve learned.

After performing for 7.5 hours last week and then in 50 degree weather on Sun I’m pretty confident we can take on just about any show that comes our way!

You didn’t know Detroit has a carousel, did you?

I was totally paranoid someone was going to fling that door open the entire time I was standing in front of it.
Tee: from Mae
Tank: Target
Shorts: Nordstrom Rack
Leggings: Nordstrom
Boots: Bakers
Bag: Shop Suey

Dinner date with Mandy – we finally had a chance to try Hot Taco and it did not disappoint. The tacos were delicious and hot of course! It was nice to spend a sunny Friday downtown. We totally went to a second restaurant for dessert and had tiramisu and a chocolate tart. I pretended I had already made my escape from the cube and Mandy and I were just taking a break from our sweet freelance lives to hang out. Getting so close :)

Mandy and I had a Detroit date on Sunday. I love exploring the city like a tourist and trying out new restaurants. The weather was beautiful so we drove along the river to a little organic pizza shop called Green Zone. They had lots of veggie options and fake cheese, though I always opt for the real stuff :) After lunch we wandered around downtown Detroit looking for dessert and settled on napoleons from Astoria – one of my favorite desserts.

After we were sufficiently stuffed we walked down to the Dequindre Cut near Mandy’s apartment. The Cut was previously railroad tracks and not some place anyone would go for an afternoon walk, but it’s now a greenway for pedestrians and bikers leading down to the riverfront. I love that they left so much of the graffiti intact – it was the perfect backdrop for my new skeleton leggings!

Tee: Soprano
Leggings: Ebay
Sneakers: Converse
Clutch: Etsy
Necklace: Plastique
Bracelet: Gypsy Warrior

There was a very sleepy marathon hula hooper, a bed of nails, snake charming, tap dancing, burlesque, a breakdance battle, and a very sneaky magician…

Visit Red Riding Photography for lots more photos!

Saturday night was our biggest Weird Sisters show to date at Theatre Bizarre: The Initiation. After weeks of rehearsal and preparation by the TB family over at the Masonic Temple it was amazing to see everything come together. They built stages, hung banners and huge art pieces, switched out hundreds of light bulbs to give all SEVEN floors a spooky glow.

The morning of the show – we met at the Masonic for one final run through and wandered through the building as the morning sun crept through the halls.

At 7 p.m. the doors opened and cleverly costumed pledges began to filter in. People get really creative with their costumes – store bought is just not an option for Theatre Bizarre.

Mae, Mandy and Nate came to show their support.

The zombified Detroit Party Marching Band wandered through the halls, stopping in the middle of the lobby for an enthusiastic breakdown, complete with clapping, dancing and silly string.

Pants was a well dressed horse for the night and was stopped multiple times by random people for photos.

There were multiple stages, spooky lounge singers and burlesque dancers, the Odditorium full of magicians & sideshow freaks, suspensionists hanging in glass boxes, undead elevator operators manually moving the cars between floors, a ghost train (which I never managed to locate).

The Detroit Fire Guild, painted like steely-abbed devils, were positioned throughout the building and on the columns out front spinning fire and flipping on stilts.

Only way to drink wearing the horse mask :) Pants was one sweaty mess once he took that thing off.

My mask for the party, which I made a few nights before. I threw on my ‘target for a knife thrower’ outfit in between shows.

There aren’t many people in these pictures, but I assure you the place was packed. I saw a ship full of pink-horned vikings, a sexy female Elvis, a space girl wearing a lighted bubble helmet, far too many black swans, Maurice from Little Monsters, the Wizard of Oz w/his hot air balloon, multiple yip-yips, and my favorite of the whole night…the priest from Beetlejuice.

Last two photos are from Detroit photographer Joe Gall, so you can see how freaking cool the place looked :)

Photos and video from our performance are coming soon :) And thank you to Mae and Irina for the pictures as I was running around most of the night and only had a couple on my iPhone.

A few weeks ago on our little Detroit date, Mandy and I stopped at the Heidelberg Project. I have a talent with directions and can sort of wander into the area I think something is located and magically find my way there. After a few twists and turns we look to our right and there it was, the Heidelberg Project in all its junk covered glory.

The Heidelberg Project is an art installation created in 1986 by Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey. In the 25 years since the project’s creation there has not be one act of violence on a street previously riddled with drugs and crime. It’s a bright spot in a not-so-great area on the east side of the city and a grand statement on taking things into your own hands to make your neighborhood a better place.

Many of the painted houses are still occupied – Guyton’s mother lives in the Dotty Wotty house. Last year they collected hundreds of shoes and covered the entire street. Even one of those giant shoe chairs showed up. Now there are piles of discarded and painted shoes throughout the property, along with a towering stack of stuff animals in a boat, a half-buried pink Hummer, and (somehow) three shopping carts on the top of a tree.

First was dinner and unfortunately Cadieux Cafe is not terribly vegetarian friendly except for their delicious fries. Bill downed a giant, GIANT bowl of muscles. They smelled so good I was tempted to try one, but the smell could not over power the way they looked.

After dinner it was time to learn the delicate art of feather bowling. There is an actual feather stuck in the dirt on each end of the trench and you take a ball that resembles a large wheel of cheese and chuck it toward the other side of course trying to land it as close to the feather as possible.

I only managed to come close to the feather once and was much better and throwing it slightly short and blocking the other team.

If balls from both team land close to the feather then you use some sort of stick thing to see who is closest.

The stick thing also makes a great guitar.

And if you’re terrible at feather bowling you can just enjoy their wide selection of Belgian beer (ignore the PBR there :)