| | Last Saturday night was my first recital as a teacher at Kerry Henry Piano Studios. I only had one student performing, but even so, Evan insisted that he wanted to be there, and, although he works a twelve-hour shift on Saturdays, he came - bearing two white Fiji chrysanthemums - and held my hand while my one and only student of the night performed her little solo. Very well too, I might add. :) I was proud of her. And the moment the recital was over, she begged her daddy to take her around the room and let her play all the pianos. Since this was a piano dealer showroom, there were a lot. The recital was hosted by Hopper Piano & Organ, Raleigh's Steinway dealer, and, as I later learned, the 9-foot Steinway the students were performing on is the selfsame piano the last seven or eight visiting concert artists have used for their performances with the North Carolina Symphony. Which means it's probably the piano I heard last fall when I was attending concerts to fulfill requirements for my Twentieth Century Music class. It's a beautiful, beautiful instrument.
Evan took me to Carabbas for dessert afterwards (those of you who know us! well can guess what our dessert choice was!) and made me promise to call him when I arrived home, and let him know I was safe. So I did, the moment I turned my car off, holding the phone with one hand while I collected stray books and sheets of music from the passenger seat.
That's when the car shook.
Now, I ask of you, if your car suddenly, violently shakes, whole minutes after you've turned it off, late on a cold November night, would your mind leap straightway to unfriendly things - or persons - big enough to shake your car? Mine did, and I stopped mid-sentence. And there came, from underneath my car, over the top of my hood and straight at me, a long black shape.
I screamed.
Mid-scream, I realized this was not a gunman about to force me out of my car. It was Oliver, our neighbors' portly and exceedingly sociable cat, who has been curling up to nap in our flower pots for the last three years.
I said "OH!" and dropped everything in my hands.
I had just enough time to think hazily how glad I was Evan was there on the phone through all of this before he came to the rescue.
He said "Bless you!"
"What?"
"Bless you!"
"Why?"
"You sneezed, didn't you?"
Pause.
"That was a scream. Not a sneeze."
"Oh."
And then, of course, he was very comforting, and asked what was wrong and if I was all right. And I woke up my sisters three times in the night, laughing out loud. 
Something similar happened with a balloon under my bed several years ago, and I nearly gave my roommate the scare of her life before I discovered it was only a smiley face balloon.  At least a cat is a step up from that! I'm not the only person in the world who's ever been spooked by a cat. By a balloon, now . . . .
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| | Posted 11/24/2007 11:46 PM - 13 views - 1 comments
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