I had by happenstance spent Syttende Mai (May 17, Constitution Day) with her big, embracing, kinetically charged family earlier in the year. With the bravado of General George S. Patton commanding the Seventh Army in World War II’s Mediterranean theater, Tatina had marshaled us through a day that included a chilly morning in Oslo’s city center to watch and cheer on the colorful children’s parade, followed by both church and mosque services where prayers of thanks were offered to God/Allah for His continued protection of immigrants in this strange northern European land. Exhausted from prayer on empty stomachs, we all sat at a longboard restaurant table for a Norwegian lunch of lutefisk (choking down lutefisk was proof of the immigrants’ willingness to assimilate), pickled herring, kumla, lefse and cheeses and later ate an evening traditional Somali family dinner (mostly to kill the taste of the lutefisk).

So it should come as no surprise that in the twenty-five minutes it took to drive home from the car dealership in Farmington Hills, she had, by phone call and text, put together a ladies’ night at my house with Elena, Carmela, Sylvia, Lucy and three of Elena’s neighborhood organizer buddies, including Mexicantown city council rep Nadine Rosado.

“Should I be on bail alert?” Tatina said as we walked into the house.

“I don’t expect it to be elevated to that,” I said. I was going downtown to have a word with Danny Romero, whom I suspected of putting two slugs in my godfather’s back. Truth is I was kind of hoping Danny would throw the first punch, justifying my crumpling him like a used tissue. Might be a nice warm-up for the three guys coming to put me down.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll be on bail alert.”

This, of course, annoyed the hell out of me, if only because it served as yet another example of how well Tatina was getting to know me.

While uninformed outsiders might think of Detroit as a barren, postapocalyptic boneyard populated by ravagers, marauders and murderous tribes, the city actually offers a wealth of surprising civility and beauty.

Take 645 Griswold Street.

The Penobscot Building.

Situated in the Detroit Financial District, the Penobscot Building was designed by Art Deco architectural master Wirt C. Rowland and opened in 1928. Inside, the forty-seven-story building is resplendent with decorative flooring, colorful tile wall murals and stone artifices simultaneously honoring and appropriating Native Penobscot tribal art. Dramatic lighting transports you back to another era, and an assortment of restaurants pay tribute to both modern, on-the-go appetites and those of well-mannered forties fine dining.

The one hideous feature of the Penobscot Building was its twelfth-floor occupancy by the law offices of Daniel Antonio Romero, Esq.

A single turd floating in an otherwise beautiful cut-glass punch bowl.