I had a long day of flying and crossing time zones yesterday. I got into Nashville and “home” to my best friend’s parent’s house around midnight. When I got up this morning I had that weird post-vacation disorientation of not knowing where I was or what I was planning on doing and spent a quiet morning over pancakes and sausage figuring out my plans for the day.

And then it started raining.

Seriously???

Whoever is in charge of this nonsense needs to quit it! I’m glad it didn’t rain in Mexico or I’d need to change my name to the Rain Queen instead of the Gypsy Queen. I’m beginning to feel responsible!

However, it wasn’t raining very hard so Mrs. Wilson and I made plans to get together with some of her girlfriends and make food for a brunch they are having tomorrow. We met at a beautiful house in Brentwood in a location called Belle Rive. Doesn’t that name conjure up visions of antebellum dresses, mint juleps and gracious living?? I didn’t take pictures in our hostess’s house, because that’s just tacky, but if you look at this site you can get an idea of the size and scope of her house.

I’d also like to point out that when I google “Nashville mansions” the houses are 4x this size, which gives you an idea of how gigantic they grow their houses out here. This lady’s house was beautifully laid out and had every possible kitchen item, tool, dish and appliance you could ever want as well as a free standing granite topped island the size of most people’s kitchens. A delight to work in.

We made egg casseroles and overnight french toast and cheese grits while it poured rain and the ladies critiqued the TV weather girl’s style (“why would she leave the house without doing her eyes and lips?? Someone needs to find her a better fitting jacket!”) but then the sirens started up and the TV wailed out a tornado warning.

Ordinarily, I’d keep working and just watch the weather pound away outside unless trees started flying around or something but the lady who owned the house had survived a tornado as a child in Missouri. She and her family went to their basement during a tornado warning and came up afterward to find the top floor of their house had disappeared. They lost everything. She takes tornado warnings seriously and that made everyone else antsy so we retreated to the far hallway and shut all the doors during the worst of it.

It was pretty bad but the worst of it passed by us. The rain went sideways and trees in her yard with trunks I could barely put my arms around shook back and forth in several foot arcs. We drove into another neighborhood later to find pear trees in pieces with long limbs sheared off like a giant hand had reached down and pulled them off for toothpicks.

Wild. Lots of destruction but as far as I know, no one was hurt. When the rain finally lessened, we finished up the cooking and left to have a soothing taco and mojito at Swanky’s Taco Shop.

I would have liked to do some more sight seeing that afternoon but between the continuing rain and the power outages and traffic snarls with hysterical moms in SUVs trying to get their kids out of school in the worst hit areas, we called it quits in the late afternoon and came back so I could do laundry, repack and figure out the rest of my week. The trend continued later in the night when we went out to Station Inn to hear the Time Jumpers, but the entire place was sold out with this sign on the door.

I love the paper plate but Booo! Foiled at every turn today! I guess that’s a sign to pack up and get out of here.

So I’ll leave you with something big:

That would be a scale model of the Parthenon. Init purty with all those lights? I’m told that Nashville is the “Athens of the South” because of the prevalence of higher education institutions. They built this replica in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial  and then turned it into a museum afterward. It’s a popular place for wedding photos and parties, for obvious reasons.

And here’s something small:

A sign that the rain is good for something.

Tomorrow: Indiana, hot yoga, old friends and Christmas?? Let’s see what happens.