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// July 18 [Mid-night Storm] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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July 18

I got woken up in the middle of the night by the crash of thunder and I jerked up on the futon just in time to see the whole inside of the apartment light up with a big lightning flash and I jumped out of bed and went to grab my vest.

I had it on and was strapping on my radios and wishing that I was smart enough to keep my camelback filled in case this exact thing happened when Meghan got up and went to the window and told me it was looking pretty bad out there.

Well, I'd thought so, too, which was why I had to go up. It was already too late to ride with Mel—he'd probably tried to call me, and I hadn't answered.

I unlatched the balcony door and a gust of wind blew it all the way open and I heard Meghan say that I was crazy, and maybe I was. But I had a duty, and I wasn't doing it. So I kissed her and told her that I'd be back and that I wasn't going to go too far, but I had to see what was coming, in case people needed to be warned.

I got Mel on the radio and it was really hard to hear him with all the static from the lightning, and he said it was looking pretty wild to the west. I let him know that I was going up in the air and I'd be headed out to the 131 Highway but I didn't think I'd make it much further than that, and he told me to be careful and said that they didn't give out medals for stupidity.

As soon as I got above the trees, the wind really hit me, and I lost some ground as I got altitude. Every time there was a big gust, I got pushed back some, but I mostly made forward progress, although not too quickly. And it was hard to judge where I was, 'cause sometimes the rain was so intense I could barely see the ground below me, and I just had to trust that what I could see on my altimeter when lightning flashed was right, 'cause otherwise I might wind up crashing into a tree or something.

I had just passed over what I think was Howard Street when a nasty gust hit me and forced me down, and I know that I'm not supposed to land on roofs but I didn't really have a choice. It was big and flat and loomed up out of the darkness and I hit kind of hard.

There must have been a couple of inches of standing water on the roof, and even over the pounding of the rain I could hear it gushing out the scuppers.

I didn't stay there too long, just long enough for the wind to die down, and for me to radio an update to Mel, then I took to the air again. The wind had died down some and the rain had slackened, too, and I was able to get up to a thousand feet and call for clearance to go higher.

Well, they said that there wasn't anything else up in the air so I could fly all the way to the cloud bottoms. That was good; I wouldn't have gotten forced down before if I could have had more altitude.

Once the rain slackened some, I could see out a mile or so, and I could see the lightning further than that but it was really hard to judge just how far away it was. It was all around, though, even behind me as far as I could see.

I kept up my patrol until a second heavy thunderstorm came through, which fortunately was somewhat less intense than the first. And I left my station a bit early—Mel called me and told me that it was clearing off in the distance so I might as well go back to bed. And he warned me to be extra careful around trees, because sometimes they got tangled up in power lines. He said if I wanted, I could land in the Meijer parking lot and he'd come and pick me up, which was really nice, but I said now that the rain was letting up I could probably fly home just as quick as he could come and pick me up, 'cause he was ten miles away or so.

Of course, keeping pace with the last thundercloud on my way back home wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but I was tired and wanted to get back to bed, and I couldn't really get any wetter.

I took Mel's warning to heart, and I did a circle around my apartment to make sure that there weren't any wires stuck in my tree before I dove under it, and I shook myself off on the balcony as well as I could. And then I almost forgot and landed normally, but at the last moment I remembered and lifted my tail up, and I was glad I had, 'cause I got a pretty big spark off my hind hoof.

Meghan was sound asleep in the papasan chair with the blanket over her. I didn't want to wake her up before I was ready to get in bed so I went to the bathroom and got some towels and wrapped one around my mane and set another on the futon and even though I was really tired I preened my wings, 'cause I knew I'd regret it in the morning. Then I draped the second towel over my back and got up on her lap and that woke her up a little bit. She put her arm on my back and then fell asleep again.

I probably wouldn't have woken up for her alarm, except that she had to get up to get her portable telephone when the alarm went off, 'cause she'd left it in her pants which had just gotten tossed on the floor last night.

Since she was already up, she didn't sit back down in the papasan. She stretched out and asked me how long I was out and I told her maybe a couple of hours—I wasn't exactly sure. And she said that the weather had been really bad for a bit and she hadn't meant to fall asleep, and I said it was okay.

Then she pet my mane and rubbed my ears and said that the whole weekend had been great and she was really tempted to call in sick today.

I didn't think it was nice to be lying about that, though. So I said that she ought to get showered and ready for work and I'd make breakfast while she was in the shower, and then we'd walk to her apartment together and wait for her ride.

I went in first so that I could pee and then I turned on the water to let it start to warm up, and when I came out she crouched down and kissed me.

Well, it didn't take too long to put water in the electric kettle and start heating it, so once I'd done that I went back and pushed the bathroom door open and sat on the toilet seat and when she came out of the shower I kissed her in the tummy and gave her a towel. Then I hopped off the toilet and went to the kitchen to put the oatmeal in bowls.

She came in with the towel wrapped around her head and took her bowl to the papasan and I followed her out but sat on the floor to eat mine, 'cause I didn't want to drop oatmeal on her by mistake after she'd taken a shower.

When we were done with breakfast, I helped her brush her hair and then while she was getting dressed I packed all her cooking dishes into her bag, and she told me that I didn't have to come to her house with her. But I'd said I would, and I wanted to, so I did.

There were some small branches down on the sidewalk and a lot of leaves, too, which really showed how strong the storm had been. And we had to take a little detour around a big tree branch that had fallen in her neighborhood. It was mostly across a lawn, but the very end of it was over the sidewalk, and it was a good thing that the wires were on the other side of the street or it would have gotten them.

Meghan told me that I could use her room for a nap if I wanted, and I thought that was really nice of her to offer, so I said that I would, so she carried her bag upstairs and then left the door propped open. Before she left for work, she reminded me to lock up on my way out.

Her bed was wider and plusher than mine and I could almost get lost in it.

Since it was already getting kind of warm, I didn't get under the covers; I just streteched out on top of them and pretty soon I dozed off.

I slept for a couple of hours, and when I woke back up I stretched out and went outside, locking up behind me like I was supposed to.

I had a lot to think about on my way back home. I was gonna have to tell Aric that me and Meghan had had sex and I didn't think he'd be mad about it but I couldn't be sure. So I'd send him a computer letter today, 'cause I had to tell him that I was coming to see his play, too.

And I hadn't told Meghan that I was going to Lafayette next weekend. I should have, but it had slipped my mind. I'd call her, though, or maybe stop by tonight. I thought she'd said that it was tonight that she made dinner for her housemates, and I didn't want to interrupt that.

I went by Aric's house to make sure that it was all okay after the storm and I saw that the birdfeeder had fallen down. Luckily, it hadn't broken, but the rope that had held it up had.

So I was trying to figure out what I could use to tie it back up when Angela came out. She said that she'd seen me out the kitchen window and she would have come out sooner but she had to put on pants.

Well, I said that it wouldn't have bothered me if she hadn't worn pants, and she said that it didn't really bother her either but the neighbors might complain.

So we looked around the garage and we found some more rope and then David came out and he wanted to help, too, and between the three of us we managed to get the birdfeeder back up where it belonged.

Most of the seeds had fallen out when it landed, so I refilled it, and then I flew off and sort of roamed aimlessly around town until I started to feel hungry for lunch.

Taco Bell was kind of tempting, but there was lots of food at my apartment, so I went back there and had a piece of leftover casserole and a slice of cake and that was probably a little too rich for lunch.

After I'd cleaned up, I wrote the computer letter to Aric and that took a while 'cause I kept on being unhappy with what I wrote, and had to change it. But I was finally satisfied and so I sent it to him.

I was going to sit on the balcony and read Proverbs but then I thought that the backyard at Aric's house was nicer than mine—it was sunnier and grassier—and I didn't think they'd mind, so I picked up a towel and my Bible and flew over there.

Angela was outside on a blanket, right close to the wall of the garage, so I guess she'd had the same idea. She was lying on her stomach and had her swimming-bra untied and I landed next to her and asked if she minded if I read in the sun for a little while. She said she didn't mind at all.

So I started to read Proverbs, and it began by saying how important wisdom was and how it would teach wisdom. And it said that if you had wisdom you wouldn't do wrong things or be with the wrong people.

Then there were a couple of chapters where it said how bad and dangerous it was to sleep with another man's wife, and after that it got to the wisdom of Solomon, and each bit of wisdom was only two lines long so that it was easy to remember.

Then there were thirty sayings of the wise, and then there were more sayings of the wise and more wisdoms of Solomon and it was a whole lot to remember, but I did know that usually if you thought something was unwise, it probably was, and if you thought that maybe something was bad, than it probably was. I think that Proverbs was maybe supposed to be taught to children when they were young and hopefully by the time that they were adults they would have learned it.

Although I knew some ponies who might have benefited from reading Proverbs.

When I finished it, I thought that maybe I did feel a little bit wiser.

So I closed the Bible and thought that there would be some wisdom in just sitting and looking around and letting my mind wander.

Angela had decided to lie on her back and she hadn't bothered to put her swimming bra on, but she had it next to her in case anybody came by I guess. And there were a couple of bold birds that were hopping on the roof and looking at the feeder even though we were there—I think they were trying to decide if either of us wanted to eat them.

Further down towards the ground, there was a row of weeds along the fence that were flowering, and I saw a couple of bees darting from blossom to blossom, and some other bugs flying around, too. A lot of insects like to hide in the hottest parts of the day.

I just sat and watched the wildlife for a bit, while Angela slept. There was a squirrel who really wanted to get at the birdseed, too, but he wasn't brave enough. He'd go partway across the lawn and kind of take a few steps forward, towards us, and then he'd change his mind and run back to a tree and watch from the trunk for a little bit and then try again.

He wasn't ever going to get fat like the squirrels at Kalamazoo College.

Angela sat up and put her swimming bra back on when she heard tires crunching in the driveway—it was one of their new housemates, an older man named Mick, she said. She said that he was consulting on a pipeline project and so he only needed a place to stay for a couple of months, and then he would move on to the next one.

She said that he was pretty quiet, and sometimes was gone for days at a time but he'd paid all his rent upfront in cash which was nice. He'd been gone all weekend, she told me, and he would probably take a shower and spend a little time on his computer then most likely he'd be gone by 5 am tomorrow. She said that was why I hadn't seen him yet.

I hugged her goodbye and then took off, and rather than fly over the house I flew over the driveway. Mick’s truck was really nice and had lots of chrome and big wheels and looked like it had been really expensive.

I ate leftover casserole for dinner and a bowl of timothy and the rest of the daylilies, and then I checked my computer and Aric hadn't sent me a letter back (probably because he was really busy with their final rehearsals) and then I decided I'd take an evening flight around Kalamazoo and then go to bed early.

My vest was still a little damp from last night—I hadn't hung it up like I should have—and my airplane radio didn't work at all, 'cause the batteries had worn out. The display came on dimly, but that was all. So I put its cord in and just went over town, keeping low enough that I didn't have to worry about any airplanes bumping into me.

It was a really nice evening, and off in the distance I could see a hot air balloon and I wondered if it was Captain Green's balloon. If it hadn't been so far away, I would have flown over to find out.

When I got back home, I took a shower and then I sat on the papasan and read Walt Whitman until I got sleepy, and then I put the book away and lay down on my futon.