renter's insurance: air balloon clause?

I've been waiting for them all summer... assuming that I had just been sleeping in too late, or simply not hearing the familiar "whoosh" of the hot air balloons they launch across the street from my apartment in the summer and fall months.

But this morning as I peered out my window shortly after 7am, I saw my old familiar friends floating across the early purple-gray sky. I ventured out onto the balcony in my pajamas to try to take some artsy photos, but I couldn't get my camera out of video mode. After a frustrating half hour of pajama-balcony-video-taking, I gave up and headed inside.













I did manage to take a few stills...














At this point, I realized that the balloon was getting relatively *closer* to my apartment despite the fact that they're supposed to head away from the launch site (and aren't they supposed to go *up*?), but I was so frustrated with the camera that I didn't think anything of it.



So there we sat, camera and I, lounging on the couch in a murky sea of muttered curse words. The camera was so clogged with video files that I couldn't take another picture, and it wouldn't let me erase any files.
*beep, beep* ... *sonofa...* *beep, click! beeeep*
-- whoooooooooooooosh --
*you damn piece of --* *beeep click beeeep*
-- WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH --





the second whoosh-- the one that rivaled the noise level of a tornado touching down on a nuclear power plant-- is the one that made me look up.



This is when I learned that there is no better incentive to learn how to use your digital camera than a hot air balloon that is about to land in your living room.








...literally












the people on board would've made a fantastic photo-- the woman 'steering' the balloon (balloon-a-teer?) had her arms out basically just to catch the chimneys that the basket was about to topple over.












Initially, they all gave out a little scream as they descended into the middle of our four apartment buildings, and there was a weird moment when someone noticed me taking pictures and we both looked at each other peacefully, like... "we're about to meet. In my living room. Covered in rubble". But my favorite thing is that when the balloon was really about to careen into the building(s), the people in the basket were completely silent... in that completely human, hilarious, "maybe if we don't make any noise, they won't notice us" kind of way













amazingly, they managed to get *just* enough momentum to gain a tiny bit of altitude, slide up the side of my neighbor's roof, and plop down like a wet leaf in the parking lot on the other side. I don't know if they hit any parked cars or neighborhood cats, but I didn't hear anything except a basket skittering to an anti-climactic stop. Aside from the "are they going to land in my living room?" moment and the "ooooh... I hope no people topple out of the basket when they hit that chimney" moment... that was a *great* start to my day. Two parts exciting, one part bizarre.

ok. off to work.
sighhhhh.