Mother Nature and the music (complete with photos)

It's a challenge to play three Masses (all with different music) in one day.

Now factor in just 1.5 hours of sleep. And a morning spent fighting the elements. And my power not being on. And no real chance to rest until late in the day.

That was my Saturday.

We've had some nasty weather the last few days, and Friday night into Saturday was no exception. So my Saturday started with the power going out. Bye, air conditioning and fan. It quickly became too uncomfortable to sleep, unless I passed out around 4 a.m.

At about 5:15 a.m., I woke up to this: That's not really a blurry shot. It's just how hard it was raining. Our gutters were overflowing because the leaves that had blown around were clogging them. That led to large puddles outside the house, and worries about water showing up in the basement. That's where I sleep, so I was certainly concerned.

Soon, the street sewer drains, well, weren't:

And up the water came toward the house. So the family spent three hours trying to unclog the sewer drain (successfully) and clearing out the gutters (semi-successfully), while it was still pouring. To clear the gutters, my dad climbed up an aluminum ladder during a thunderstorm. He did not slip or get zapped, thankfully.

By 9, the crisis was over without any water in the basement. But I needed to be at a church (not my regular one) by noon to play a wedding, and the power was out. I needed to iron my clothes, clean myself up and shave. Off to Grandma's I went.

Got to church on time and played the wedding. Then I got notice from work that something I'd been waiting on was ready for me to look at it. I went to a restaurant with Wi-Fi and took care of it, then went back to my regular church for 4:00 Mass on the piano, not the organ. Apparently, I can't hide when I'm tired, because everyone asked if I was OK. Well, yes, just tired.

At this point, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. After Mass, I asked the Spanish cantor (who was at 4 even though Spanish Mass is at 7) to wake me up at 6:30, because I was going to get some sleep in the organ loft.

OK, I couldn't sleep. So I spent a while staring at the ceiling:
Then I got some caffeine, played 7 p.m. Mass, drove home and slept 11 hours.

I'm not sure whether I played well. I hope I did (wedding fees aren't cheap, so I owe it to the couple to not stink). On the bright side, if I was horrible, at least I could blame it on the rain.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)