I'll Stand Before the God of Song

We had been traveling a lot this summer and seen a lot of amazing things. We ended up at the lake for the eclipse, where it wouldn't be as dramatic as it was elsewhere but still a respectable percent. Coming home, which we absolutely had to do, we didn't consider one thing, traffic. The traffic was just awful as many people were trying to get to where they too needed to be. Our favorite animal friendly motel had a no vacancy sign. Then the AC in the SUV decided to just stop working and it was hot. Master made the decision to pull into a shady rest stop where we could stretch our legs. The kids were miserable, and everyone was just cranky. He napped on a bench for a time, just relaxing for the monster drive he knew was in the future. We again hit the road, by Master's calculations, we might be home by four am, but he was unsure about the traffic. Several accidents slowed us down. The sun was beating down on us and everyone was just pissed. Kids were whining the dog was panting, Master was grouchy and so was mouse. Just as the sun began to thankfully go down mouse turned on the radio, searching at this point for anything.

Leonard Cohen was a writer, songwriter, poet and somewhat of a singer. Honestly, mouse wasn't a huge fan of his music but when a radio station actually came in, mouse wasn't going to fussy about the music played. At worse, it might be background noise.  At first, mouse didn't recognize the song played on that oppressively hot night, then the first words were heard..."Well, i heard there was a secret chord. That David played and it pleased the lord, but you don't really care for music, do you?"

For the next seven minutes or so, the car fell quiet, maybe it was the raspy voice or the tone, or lack of singer quality that kept us hanging on the every word sang? Whatever the reason when the song finished Master turned the volume down. With each passing mile we silently reminded ourselves that it was a mile closer to home. We stopped a few times at a fast food place or rest stop that looked patrolled. At 11pm the temperatures finally dipped below 80 and we felt like rejoicing.

The kids finally fell asleep and mouse struggled to stay awake for Master. If he was going to suffer through this drive from hell, she might as well suffer along with him. Like a sign of solidarity.

The accidents slowed us down and it was long after sunrise before we arrived home. Master said to leave the bags until later and we went into the sweltering hot house. Before we left, we turned the AC off.  Good grief.  At least that started up nicely and after a hour the house was noticeably cooler. We were too tired to move but mouse managed to make some toast and a cup of weak tea for Master, who did need to eat something. Since we drove at night, we missed all our favorite road fruit stands so we had nothing in the house to eat.

After an hour or so, Master went to bed, where he remained for several hours and completely undisturbed. Because the kids had slept mouse felt she should not leave them completely unsupervised so she stayed awake. Eventually she grabbed her set of keys and took the kids to grocery shop (yes, they balked because no one wanted to see a car ever again). At the market mouse struggled to keep her focus. What did we need? Some eggs, wheat bread, coffee, some lunch meat, salad...

Just enough to keep us going for one more day.