On the Road for IC

My wife and I have been working toward moving back to our old haunts in TN - and it has taken us several weeks, it seems, to get from Corpus Christi to TN, but we arrived tonight - 12/8, at 12.30....after driving for hours through driving rain.....yeah, bad pun, but it was soooo nasty.

Tomorrow we begin house hunting. Dooley is thrilled to not be in the car (his 30lb bod is tired of all the vibs from riding in the Stratus for a zillion miles).

So we stopped at the Cathedral in Birmingham for the 12.10 Mass. Complete with cantor and 50 some rank Moller (one of their last). I think the people were singing, it's hard to tell in lively acoustics, and the organ was not a timid thing (yeahhhhh!). At communion, we sang a setting of the Magnificat to the tune, Jerusalem. The Hillert Lamb of God was very nice. The Kyrie was not familiar to me, and the music was not printed in the bulletin (all other music was). The music dir. for the Cathedral was at the console, subbing for the regular organist, and there was also a sub cantor; all things went well, though. I had the pleasure of meeting the dm and talking with him briefly, and then got to spend about 40 minutes playing - just tried the stops, then improvised on St. Elisabeth, Katie's favorite hymn. It wasn't my best, but I've not played for well, a long time - and I was wearing those huge shoes so my pedal work was sparce, but it had form. To my surprise there was another organist listening in (he had come to practice - a retired choral conductor, who was the nicest person in the field that I've met in ages). We had a great time, but had to leave. Had the Red Roof Inn at Knoxville not been so hugely expensive, we'd have spent the night there, but are in Johnson City at the RRI, one of our favorites and comfortable.

Gotta run. . . am tired. We giggled for several miles while I imagined my composition list to be printed in an upcoming recital bulletin (not scheduled...just dreaming here)..... Prelude, Fugue and 36 Variations on My Name is Leonardo; Flight of the Fly before getting eaten by Dooley; etc..... it must be late.

SteveO