Toaters and Toasts

Can you tell I'm bored? I keep blogging! Please do not feel obligated to read everything, just peruse. Saturday morning my toaster caught on fire! I put a piece of toast in, left and went to check my email. Suddenly, the smell wafted upstairs, and I raced downstairs in time to see the toaster oven engulfed in flames. How could I so easily forget what I was doing? The knob has been broken for quite some time, making the toaster stay on until you unplug the whole thing. That did it for me. We are now the proud owners of a Cuisinart, lovely normal toaster. I got it at 20% off thanks to my friend (see my Nourishing blog for the whole story).

Saturday evening we were invited to a wedding shower for his boss. The invitation read:

219 West
Austin, Texas

I thought the people were kind of weird not to put "Avenue" or even a zip code. I don't know, it just looked funny. I googled early in the week, proud that I was ahead of things with "directions". That night we hired a babysitter, dressed up a little and headed downtown for a night of fun. We assumed it was at the hostess house. Wouldn't you? We drove down West Avenue only to have it dead-end into an abyss of darkness. Surely...surely...these people know where they live. We turned around and drove in the other direction. We checked the iphone for directions one more time. We stopped, and micah asked for directions (a miracle in itself!). She said, I don't think that's a street name, I think that's a place. At this point we are 20 minutes late for "dinner" for a boss who likes everyone on time, every time. We see some friends from church by "coincidence". They pray for us to be a beacon of light and to find this crazy place.

Micah realizes it's a bar, and calls his boss (upon my urging) for directions. His crazy friend, mark, answers. I can hear him yelling into the phone, drunk with loud music blaring behind him. Oh boy, this is going to be fun. My palms start sweating and I wonder if I really want to go. I'm picturing some crazy gay bar or worse...I wouldn't put it passed any of them. But surely the bride-to-be wouldn't stand for such nonsense. I hope? His friend manages to give him the cross streets, but we wonder if he has any idea what he is talking about. We drive around, find a parking place on the street (whew) and look up, there is 219 West. It's a nice little place that I might actually go back to some time. They have great appetizer type snacks and coke. You can't go wrong with that, and you can sit outside and see a bustling downtown. We were downstairs in this little basement type room, crammed in like sardines. While his friend is crazy and desperately in need of Jesus, he managed to get us there, and we managed to have a really good time. I just pray that whatever little ray of light we may have shed, God could burst through their hearts and do a good work.