There’s as much rain today as during Superstorm Sandy, maybe more. Sandy was the last time the water outside my house rose this high. The house stands about 20 feet or so up a small hill. It’s in no danger. But I have spent the entire morning staring out the window mesmerized by weather. Enthralled might be more accurate. Water covers the sidewalk, now covered with debris from the pond, optimistically renamed a lake in the nineteenth century.
The situation on the lake’s opposite side, the lower side, is much worse. The adjacent street is impassable. The lake has expanded into the driveways and parking lots. Nonetheless, mid-morning, a driver foolishly tried to get through what was then knee-deep water. The car sits there as the water continues to rise, lights flashing.
Now I am having a useless conversation with myself about climate change. Whether an individual weather event is significant? What can one person do? One nation? If the population of the planet is really decreasing significantly will that make a difference? I won’t be around to find out in any event. Will all of this, whatever “this” is, bring on another Ice Age? How do people survive in extreme cold or extreme heat? Is the house watertight? Will the roof leak? The basement? And why didn’t I stop at Wegman’s on my way home yesterday knowing I was short on milk and have no eggs?
There will be no dining in the Sukkah tonight, or tomorrow. As Jewish holidays go, Sukkot is fun so that’s kind of sad. Ah, a policeman has arrived and parked the patrol car where the water isn’t. He and the driver of the stuck car are standing outside the car and looking at it. Plainly nothing can be done until the water recedes, and I am sure that car is a goner along with a few others parked on the street before the weather turned diluvial.
All of this serves to distract me. This morning I learned that a friend I’d not seen in quite some time, years, in fact, a close friend of my late husband, died a few months ago. I learned it the way we seem to learn everything these days, by a Google search. I’d read something in the New Yorker that made me think of my friend. I Googled and learned he’d died a few months ago. Over the years, from time to time I had wondered what he’s up to, I thought I should go visit, but never did. I’m glad my daughter visited him the summer before last. Still, I am surprised when the things I know might happen, do happen, and I can’t change them. I can’t call. I can’t go visit. The past is exploding inside my head, a torrent of memories. It takes an actual weather cataclysm to make that go away for even a few minutes.
The rain continues. The water has risen to the car’s doorhandles. A man in a yellow vest paddles a kayak around the car and along the street. The U.S. government will likely shut down. That will cause terrible hardship to more people than I can imagine. Diane Feinstein died. I don’t know where the geese and ducks hide in this weather. Maybe I will get to a Sukkah this week. Maybe not. When the rain stops and the water recedes, I must clean up the mess in the yard.
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Save the Date, Sunday October 22 for an ALTE event. Details to follow.
Thank you for your close-up view of this weather event which I first heard of from my son-in-law texting me from LA asking if we had flooding happening. I live 45 miles west of Albany. It was cloudy here most of the day, but none of the small amount of predicted rain came until the middle of the night, and not much fell, so once again we lucked out. All your climate change, government shut-down thoughts intermixed with the ordinary details of day to day living are what go through my mind many times daily. It's so good to connect to kindred spirits online. Blessings and Peace, Sue