barbeque, buses, and tea parties

tonight was surreal. to celebrate the completion of bekah's paper, we drove down the mountain just as the thunderstorm began. the storm, however, was not a torrential downpour, more of a constant backdrop setting. we went to sticky fingers because alex was working tonight and we wanted to cheer him up a bit. so the four of us got a booth and split two pies, fighting over bites with our spoons. amy sue and aaron took the lemons from our water and ate them with hot sauce. then proceeded to suck on them and put the various barbeque sauces on them. when we had finished the pie and lemons, alex gave us balloons which sit at the top of my ceiling right now. we skipped along in downtown chatty, in the rain and lightning, jumping in puddles, with balloons tied around our wrists. amy sue and i stood together and jumped into a huge puddle. then, while waiting at the intersection for the walk signal, we were chatting and laughing. the signal turned to walk, and we bounded into the crosswalk. looking left, i saw this bus pass the line and continue through the intersection. i was puzzled and suddenly the realization that the bus was coming straight at us hit. i reached out and grabbed amy sue's sleeve and pulled her back as i jumped back myself. the bus stopped two and a half feet from us. the thing i remember most about it was that the bus driver had absolutely no expression on his face. he just stared at us with blank eyes. we stood there with him stopped, and he didnt motion to us to cross...just stared. we hesitantly stepped in front of the bus and hastened across the rest of the street. giddy with laughter and adrenaline and thanking God for his protection. we wound our way back up the mountain and decided to have another tea party. we couldnt use fourth because of people, so we invaded first, the overlooked lobby. we set up blankets and pillows and the alpaca rug from the EBP. i strung the two boxes of christmas lights i had all over, making this wonderful glow. mark brought the guitar up and we sat and played music and talked and told stories and drank tea. one of the highlights being alex's replaying of his folk festival song. we talked until we started to fall asleep, then gathered up all the things and carried them back upstairs. it was a wonderful night. incredibly surreal. and the face of the bus driver is still vivid in my mind. the strange thing is that i never felt fear. just...the need to stop it. to get them out of the way. its sobering to think of how we almost got hit. but there was literally no fear. the only thing that went through my head was to get my friends out of the way. no adrenaline rush, just sudden action. the thunder storm continued to growl until we wandered back to our rooms, raining and lightning outside the windows with the warm christmas lights and soothing guitar. a surreal night to say the least.

thank you, Lord, for your protection and blessing.