Wild buffalo have broken loose in Leiper's Fork. There are giant fish swimming down Gallatin Pike. Dad's sleeping over. Which one is least likely?Regardless of the catastrophic goings-on around town today, it's been fun. Dad went to church this morning, nice shoes and ready to play, and then they called off the whole tunafish. So after aiding in positioning garbage cans in the sanctuary to catch leaking storm water, he began his attempt to get home. After blocked roads kept him from his comfy, cozy house on The Hill, his only recourse was good ol' just-barely-elevated Idaho Avenue. We waited out the worst of it, dropped our jaws together during the breaking news stories and the visuals of terrific swirls of water sweeping through parking lots, made sure to stay in communication with mom who was stuck at home without power but was in the company of some lovely visiting family members. We had a nice lunch and a couple of Red Stripes, then we sat some more, being gobsmacked by the scenes of devastation all around these familiar parts.
There are several unfamiliar parts, though, like towns called "Defeated," "DIfficult," "Hooker's Hill" and "Peeled Chestnut," Nashville-area towns I never knew existed until the Great Flood of 2010. Newscasters were making up words like "currentmath" and phrases like "be on the better part of caution." Saying things like "The General Jackson is having some issues." Even a woman who called in with some breaking news who said, when they asked her what the situation was, "Well there's just a lot of water out in my yard." Oh wow. So much of it strikes me as funny but what's not funny are people like our friends the Kleins who have lost a decent portion of what they called home, or the sweet old man in his really dapper trench coat and wide-brimmed safari hat who had to be carried to safety from a lifeboat, or the terrified horses down by the soccer fields-turned-ocean who are trying to seek higher ground.
This has been a truly surreal 48 hours. Grateful beyond description for a house on a [slight] hill, for power, for such simple things which can easily be taken for granted until the arrival of 18+ inches of rain in a mere two days. Praying for friends who are struggling with sump pumps and drum kits in basements, to say the least.
Rain, seriously. Go away.
