the universe having fun

On Tuesday morning I looked at my boss and said "wow, it's been quite a week... Oh crap, it's only Tuesday."

Part of the problem is that the craziness started on Sunday, when the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival suddenly found itself in the path of a severe thunderstorm that I can only assume was of right-wing conservative suburban origins, given it's apparently strong desire to blow away all us New England folk music hippies. The festival folks are calling it (erroneously, I'm fairly sure) a tornado; my lay-meteorologist brother thinks it was a derecho; I just thought it was a great thunderstorm, except I was worried about the safety of festival-goers (rightly, from what I've since seen on YouTube - people holding up tents by bracing themselves against the tall metal tent poles. Um... tall metal poles? Lightning? Guys?).

Of course, it was easier for me to stay calm - not only did I grow up with (and now actually really miss) that weather, but I was in the dance tent, which stayed upright and dry - if not quiet - under the golf-ball-sized hail. At least, until the over-saturated ground stopped accepting the water pouring down on it - a nearby town reported .93 inches of rain in ten minutes. Ten minutes! - and the whole place flash-flooded, sending water up over the edge of the 3-inch platform dance floor. And the power got knocked out. Of course, what do contra dancers do under such circumstances? A few people grab brooms to fight the water out, the band goes to the middle of the hall, and everybody waltzes (as opposed to contra dancing, which requires a caller with a microphone).

That worked until they advised everyone to get out because two of the big tents had already blown down, and oh by the way DON'T TOUCH THE METAL POLES. Um, yeah, time to go. And, due to trees down on the road to the interstate, it only took me 3.5 hours to make the usually-two-hour trip home. The back roads through the Berkshires are lovely this time of year. Trust me. I've now seen most of them.

Sunday should have warned me about the rest of the week; I may have just stayed home in bed had I properly read the signs. Monday brought some crazy stories from the previous Friday (when I wasn't in the office), trying to find a way to get some very important items couriered from Vermont to Florida ($4000!!) and a surprise last-minute trip to Springfield, MA to pick up the surprise last-minute candidate for Dean of Students (who I loved, yay!). Tuesday brought the request from high-ups in my organization that I be the courier to Florida (no, they're not paying me $4000; that's sort of the point of sending me)... on Thursday.

It's surprisingly easy to make arrangements to fly to and stay in Miami on less than 48 hours notice. And surprisingly easy to cancel them and make them all over again, when it turns out a day later that I actually needed to go this coming Monday, instead of Thursday. I'd actually alread checked into my flight, and assumed that the airline would take this opportunity (since they don't seem to miss one these days) to financially eviscerate me for my "mistake," but no. I called, they canceled it, I called Expedia, and they actually offered me a way to cancel and rebook with no change fee, which they totally did not have to do. The universe is smiling.

The last couple days of the week didn't really match up to the first few (thank God). Now it's Saturday morning and I'm sorting through stacks of CDs that I am going to get rid of (did you hear that, world? I'm getting rid of things. Not a lot of things. But still. I'm actually doing a pre-move purge, aren't you proud? Sarah, this means you).

I'm really just trying to stay awake - it's 10am and I just returned from spending the night on top of a mountain. Adventure Man, in one of his many wonderful outing schemes, loves to go stargazing, and keeps an eye on the moon cycles and cloud cover forecasts. So, we headed up Putney Mountain last evening, hiking the mile or so to the top right at sunset, spread out our sleeping bags, and urged the clouds (and the distant lightning occasionally reflecting off of them) to go back from whence they were coming. We didn't have much success at first, but after dozing off for a couple hours I woke up looking at a blanket of stars over my head. When Adventure Man woke up he exponentially increased my knowledge of constellations, and we just marveled at the view of the Milky Way and the nearly constant shooting stars seemingly just above our faces.

Oh, and I nearly forgot the guy playing the saxophone. After we'd been on the mountain maybe 45 minutes, I saw light flashing off the trees near us. Being fairly sure that I hadn't done any hits of acid before our outing, I looked around and around for signs of other humans, and sure enough after a few minutes a young man came out of the woods on the trail we'd climbed, and as he passed us to find another flat sleeping spot he called back over his shoulder "will it bother you guys if I play some saxophone?" Resisting the urge to ask him how good a saxophonist he is, we said "sure" and proceeded to be serenaded to sleep by what I can only call New Age saxophone. Of all things.

It's not the most rested way to start a weekend, but it's pretty spiritually refreshing. Which I needed, to keep packing through the weekend and be ready fly to Miami bright and early on Monday. Once I'm back I'll just be holding my breath until Move Day, happily just a week and a half away. I just hope that these are really the only things that happen in the next two weeks. Since the last week seemed to last about a month.