Watery Music

Today I am grateful that three days of violent storms did little else to our home than savage our roses and clematis. And maybe the roof. (It’s a slate roof; we call it our rock collection). We, like throngs of people across the South were holed up in basements and closets and had hail damage to their cars. Flutist Jill Allard’s patio canopy was ripped into unrecognizable shreds and a fence panel was knocked down. Something massive must have hit violinist Lisa Muci’s car, because the windshield pretty much exploded. I’m glad she or Herb weren’t in it. Violinist Elizabeth Farr spoke of several broken windows in her home and much hail damage to Harpcar. This after Monday’s storm which downed power lines, made Kingston Pike through Sequoyah Hills impassible and caused uprooted trees to sever gas lines– THAT could be a problem to fix in a lightning storm. Tympanist Mike Combs just had his power turned back on TODAY after FIVE DAYS, and our streetlamps in Parkridge are still out since Monday.

Although the Symphony had no performances scheduled last night, the Principal Quartet did attempt to have a rehearsal chez Hristov, out near Dutchtown Rd. I had been teaching in Oak Ridge all day and his house was on my way home. Katy and Edward arrived at about 7:30, and violinist Any Bermudez and her husband Louis Diez were there, hanging out since 5:30 when the weather started to go, er, south. WBIR’s tireless team was on the tube, and Dutchtown was mentioned as a hail target. Miro’s kids were of course having a rave-up with all the attention and the electricity in the air, and we finally got started rehearsing about 8:30. We were choosing repertoire for an upcoming promotional gig and decided to check out something by this guy named Mozart. We got to about letter “B”and then the power went out.

After more socializing in the dark, (Miro’s 3 year old daughter Sophie taught me some of the finer points of running around and laughing, and his 8 year old son Danny and I discussed salmonella and its effects at great length) we decided that it was too dark to play and ventured out in the elements during a lull in the tornado warnings. Although I would have normally gone back to Pellissippi Parkway and then to I-40, I decided to stop at Weigel’s on Cedar Bluff to buy milk. (I swear! We were really out of milk). But when I tried to get on the highway, the ENTIRE Cedar Bluff interchange under the highway was under 5 feet of water. So, it was back to Pellissippi after all. The drive was one of the scarier ones I’ve done, lots of hydroplaning, and SUVs driving too fast. I returned home to find Helen and Richard in the basement watching the sump pump drain.

That first 32 bars of the Mozart are going to be darn good.