The Symphony House

Both times that I've driven out to M.'s house, I've had huge problems. The first time I drove out there I took a left at a place where I should have taken a right and ended up in the middle of a muddy field. I stopped, tried to back up and my little Toyota slipped into the ruts and I was very, very stuck.

I started walking . . . not back toward the road, but forward. I thought I could continue on to M.'s house by foot. It might have been a better plan if I hadn't been walking in the wrong direction.

I did finally manage to get a cell phone signal out, reached Christopher, M.'s dad, and he came and pushed me out of the rut with his own car. That's why I started the Moonlight Sonata, 3rd movement, so I could give it to them as thanks for getting me out of that horrific and life threateningly muddy situation.

This time, I drove up there in the afternoon. The sky was gray, but it didn't start raining until I was already on their road. I figured that I would be fine in my brother's 4 wheel drive jeep, so I continued on.

Nope.

I came to this place where there was a slight slope to the hill. I pressed on the brakes, intending to just slow down. Instead, the entire surface of the road turned into a mud slick. Later, Christopher told me that it's the clay that the entire area is made out of. The mud is much slicker than it is out near my house where it's tacky and sticks to everything.

So I was sliding down this very slight hill very slowly but completely out of control and it was deja vú back to my first snowstorm accident. I wasn't in control, but I wasn't going all that fast, so I'm sort of just sitting there as I slide off the road.

Crunch, right into the ditch. Into a bush.

So, I think to myself, this isn't so bad. I tried to get myself out of it . . . and well, didn't do a very good job.

I'm in the jeep, and now it's leaning to the right so strongly that I worry any more effort on my part is going to roll it, and there's a barbed wire fence just outside the passenger side window. I was so pissed off at myself for not managing to make it all the way to the house that I got out, locked the doors, and abandoned the stupid Jeep. Uhg.

Of course, now I'm walking in the rain wearing only my fleece jacket. First, I called M. and told him to come and pick me up (thank you, roaming coverage). I wasn't quite sure how much further it was, but I was out of the car so I decided to walk it. At least this time I knew which way to go.

That was a mistake because now that I'm out of the car it begins to rain harder. It was going in cycles, a few minutes of rain and then a few minutes of drizzle. When it was drizzling I would walk down the road toward his house but I kept having to stop and stand under the bushes at the side of the road when the drizzle turned to heavy rain.

A car finally saw me and stopped, but he was going the wrong way. He talked with me for a few minutes while I told him about running the jeep off the road until another truck came by headed in the right direction. The first guy gestures to the second guy to stop so the second guy slams on the brakes. Wrong move. He slid right off the road the same way I had. Luckily, he was in a better place for sliding off the road; he gunned it and managed to make it out of the ditch.

He wasn't pissed at me though, and offered to give me a ride for a little while, which was nice. I got in the truck and he took me to where his road split from the road to M.'s house, and I started walking in the drizzle again.

And then, walking down the road toward me comes M. I tried to run to meet him, but my shoes had so much mud on them that I must have looked really silly.

Anyway, walking with him along was much better than walking alone. Christopher was waiting at the top of this horrific hill (I don't think I would have been able to make it up that in the rain, and I'm sort of glad I didn't make it that far) and he drove us the final section back to the house. At the hill was when I realized that I wouldn't be able to get the jeep out that night, and M. confirmed it. I was going to have to stay with them until the morning.

I don't think I described the house the last time I blogged about it but it is a thing of music. You walk through a little entrance hallway and come into the main room, which is twisted up like the end of a treble clef. On the white walls there are these musical marks, carved deep into the plaster during construction.

If you continue around the curve, there are also these amazing little windows, and the sections of glass are put together with musical symbols in these really amazing patterns. In the sunlight these windows throw rainbows out all around the curve of the house.

Anyway, M. and his father cooked dinner, which was this amazing pasta with fresh asparagus and . . . er, something that I'm now forgetting. Whatever it was, the food was simply delicious.

M. built a fire in the back, and we sat out there for hours, talking about stuff. His trip. Books. All sorts of things. It was really nice just to have someone with whom you can talk about anything.

They put me up in the bed near the piano, and I had a pretty good night's sleep. I woke up in the morning, and I let them do some work on the house (yeah, yeah, I know, I should have helped, but I burn like a tissue paper and then there's that neck thing too).

Finally M. drove me out and we looked at the jeep. Er, yeah, I really got it stuck in there. Some guy on his way out stopped to help us, but it was still nearly beyond the three of us. Eventually we had to tear the barbed wire fence apart to get it out. It was insane.

I'd left the drawing in the jeep over night, so I drove out and dropped it off with Christopher. He seemed to like it, for which I am very grateful.

When I drove up in the jeep though, Chris said, "You managed to get stuck in that?"

Yes, yes I did.

Well, third times the charm, right? Maybe next time I'll actually make it all the way there without mud intervening. At least he enjoyed the Moonlight Sonata, 3rd Movement.