April 4, 2010

As anyone who posts items and lives in the Northeast the topic this week has to be the rain.  The area received a torrential downpour most of the day Monday and all day Tuesday.  It started raining and just would not ever let up or even slacken.  I was on the web downloading building plans for arks but unfortunately most of those looked to take more than 40 days to build - especially with my wordworking skills.  All told, we recieved somewhere around 8-9 inches of rain over the two days.  This was on top of 8 other inches of rain we had in March.  While March and April are normally wetter months, that was more like 3-4 months of rain.  There was extensive flooding across the area with several bridges severely damaged and roads washed out.  Work and schools were closed early due to the problem getting around on the roads.  For us, we had a waterfall coming over our backyard stonewall which was at least lovely to look at and listen to as you tried to figure out what to do if it starts coming into the house.  The water coming down off the hill did manage to wipe out much of our pathway up to the garden but as this was the only real damage besides some washed out dirt at the base of the wall we counted ourselves lucky.  Fortunately when it came to the house, we only had a small amount of water come in around the bulkhead door (that's the door leading from the basement to the outside for those without basements) into the basement; about the equivalent of a gallon of water total.  It was easily dried out and didn't damage anything.  Unfortunately, many of our friends and co-workers were dealing with inches or feet of water - see Bruno and Sheri's blog.

On to brighter topics, the sun did finally emerge later in the week and we have had some lovely spring weather to help dry out a little.  I spent the last few days in the back yard cleaning up and repairing the damage from the rains.  Also removed a few dead trees especially as next weekend is "chipper weekend".  That is our annual rent a chipper and clean up all the dead fallen limbs - always a fun but exhausting weekend, but more on that in a week.  Friday night we went up to Hartford with our friends Laura and Mike to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra perform.  For those in the know, you should be surprised because usually TSO only puts on a winter concert.  They have a new show based on their CD, Beethoven's Last Night - check out the tour dates at the link.  I would highly recommend the show as it is has their usual mix of great music, singing, and tremendous energy from the performers.  Saturday evening's cultural event started with dinner at Bruna's in Westerly with Sheri and Bruno (yes, those of the aforementioned blog) and then the start of the Granite Theater's season.  First up this year was "On Golden Pond" which was well performed if the crowd was bit sparse (Westerly was particularly hard hit with the rain with the main bridge and several of the alternate routes into town closed off due to the flooding.  Which presumably led to the fairly empty theater and restaurant).  As often happens, it makes you want to go out and rent the movie now to see how Henry Fonda and cast handled the roles. 

Today well be a little more work in the yard along with catching up on some reading and napping (those two often go together).  Then off to another week of work - for those keeping tally, I still don't have a boss or group named, and Jo did her usual mix of travel (to NY last week) and meetings in town.  Nothing too special planned for the coming week although I do have a follow-up visit with the doctor were I'm hoping I get a clean bill of health to begin regular duties with my shoulder.

Have a happy Easter and don't forget to find all the eggs.