party at the moontower

the apocalypse came last night.

at least that's how it felt... on the way home from work, i had to talk a construction detour about two blocks from home. i got home, and prepared for the small group girls to come over. inside, aly noticed the fridge light wasn't coming on, and we then realized all the power was out- not a big deal, it happens often enough to not concern me. a few minutes later, about 6:45, i sat on the porch swing, the heat and irritations of the day got to me and i lounged on the swing, fighting the negative mood rolling in.

the phone rang at 7:05, and it was linds: she couldn't make it to small group, traffic was too bad. rachel had already texted to say she wasn't coming, and jenny was out of town. that left four of us: lia, rara, katie and i. as i sat on the porch swing, lia called and told me it was impossible for her to get to my house- too much crazy traffic. that sounded odd, cause she lives so close (less than two miles) but after seeing the construction on the way home, i didn't think much of it. then katie beeped in the line; she couldn't come either, the traffic had made it literally impossible for her to get to my house. odd, because she too lived about 2 miles away, across colorado blvd. she mentioned a blown transformer. this meant nothing to me, but possibly explained our lack of electricity. i didn't think much of it...

at this point, everyone but one had cancelled, and just as i was about to call rara to cancel, she pulled up. i also got off the phone at this point and realized that i had been hearing sirens for about thirty minutes, my residential street was extraordinarily busy, especially for a monday night at 7:00pm, and the construction that had blocked my way home was on the other side of my house from all the girls in traffic. lia mentioned people were out and about all over the road, out of their cars, and katie said there was a blown transformer... what was going on?

rara and i sat on the porch, contemplating the evening and oddness of it, and i texted my stepdad to be our google source. he shot back a text that said 'fire on 14th and jackson', about half a mile away, and then 'blown xcel power substation at 13th and colorado', which is about 4 blocks away. as rara and i listened to the helicopters fly over us and hover within sight, we definitely felt an eerie sense of quiet chaos throughout the neighborhood.

a friendly neighbor walked by with his pup, and told us he had been at the dog park on 13th and colorado and saw a huge explosion at the power substation, and that the whole area was now full of heat, smoke and chaos. stepdad then texted that the news was claiming it would take days to fix. and a parade of men in white karate uniforms, holding blue pads walked by across the street. then spence's dog, abbey, ran across the street and up to us on the porch, barked once and ran back home.

curiouser and curiouser.

the neighbors ira and andy got home about this time, and caught sight of us on the porch. they strolled over, and settled in for a long chat with rara and i. the dogs went crazy, and i got everyone a beverage for us to sip on the porch as we discussed the obviously impending doom of our neighborhood.

eventually, rara had to leave and get home to unpack from her move; andy had to go put food in someone's refrigerator that had power, which left ira and i. i was itching to go explore and check out the scene- and especially interested in heading over to a local ice cream store to see if they would give away any free ice cream before it melted. ira has my sense of adventure, and we hopped on our bikes in the dusky summer night and rode off into the sunset.

or cloud of substation transformer explosion smoke.