jimsjournal |
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We had a very dry summer... day after day without rain. Many towns (ours included) restricted watering of lawns to alternate days of the week on an odd/even basis; other towns completely banned watering lawns. September brought some rain, but also many sunny days. Officials hesitated to issue formal declarations of drought emergency conditions but worried about a continued lack of rain. It's been raining every day for a week. Sometimes the rain has been more like a light mist and other times it has been just outright pouring down. Many areas in New England have declared flood emergencies. Dozens of houses have been swept away by flood waters in New Hampshire. It is raining now. There is an official "Flood Watch" in effect for this area since early this morning until sometime Saturday morning. Although I don't expect any flooding in our neighborhood, the forecast says that we are going to get another two to three inches of rain today, so anybody who lives near a stream or river had better be alert. The Block Island ferry has not run for the past two days due to high winds and high seas (eight to twelve feet) making it too dangerous for passengers. Having experienced swells of half that height on the Martha's Vineyard ferry, I can understand their concern. (According to the news this morning the ferry service to Nantucket has also been stopped for the past two days.) Since all supplies (like food and drink) come over as freight on the ferry, this means that there are truckloads of stuff parked in Point Judith waiting for the Block Island ferry to start up again. Despite the continued rain, they are hoping the winds slack off enough to get in a couple of trips today. We had contracted to have our house painted. (No, I do not do stuff on the outside of a house that involves lots of time spent on tall ladders. I didn't enjoy that kind of thing even when I was a kid... and I certainly haven't been a kid in many years. I've reached the age where I can break lots easier than when I was a kid.) We were just waiting for them to finish up the job they were working on and we would be next. Of course with this weather they've not yet finished their current job so who knows when they will be able to get to us. And soon the weather will turn cold. Ah well, either it will get painted this autumn or it will get painted in the spring. Or maybe they can still get the front of the house and the window frames this fall and stain the shingles in the spring. (We are living in New England: the front of the house is wood siding, the other three sides are shingle.) Nancy and I are going to see a play tonight on the URI campus -- Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. I vaguely recall having seen a television production of Blithe Spirit (starring, I believe, Tallulah Bankhead) when I was a kid -- yes, they did real plays on television back in the fifties -- and they did them live, no video tape. I guess I was in a theatrical mode yesterday because I also called up 2nd Story Theatre and finally got around to ordering a pair of season subscriptions for Jill and me. The opening play for their 2005-06 season is Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class. Jill and I will be seeing that next Thursday night. (I may have to call for another ticket; Nancy read the rave review in the Providence Journal and thinks she would like to see it, despite it being a school night.) I'm looking forward to seeing that play plus the rest of their season (A Month in the Country, Auntie Mame, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, The Misanthrope, and Trial of the Cantonsville Nine.) Shakespeare: URI will be doing Romeo and Juliet later this year and Trinity Rep will present Hamlet this winter. I'm really looking forward to seeing both. Yes, we do tend to see plays more often than movies. You can rent movies on DVD and watch them at home, but it is very difficult to have a theatre group perform live in your living room.
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