Rollin' on a River

For those that have been wondering.... Yes, I am still on dry land. In the past several days, Rhode Island has been experiencing the most devastating flood in over 100 years. I didn't realize it was that bad until 1. my boss couldn't even get out of her driveway because her street was flooded so badly 2. my parents said that flooding in Cranston (where I work in a pharmacy one day per week) was on the national news 3. I received a notice on my door from my apartment complex about being prepared for a flood and 4. I went down to Cranston today and found out that at least 2 of our stores are literally underwater (the water is all the way up to the drive-through window!!!).

Because I live in a historic former mill, my apartment is also on the water. There is a dam across the street, and then the river flows past our management office and one of the apartment buildings (not mine). Yesterday we were sent home early from work to allow people to reach their homes before roads were shut down. When I got back to my apartment complex, people were stopping at the apartment complex to take pictures of the flooding river... I thought I'd join them.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday outside my complex. It may be hard to really judge how high the water is, but trust me, it's getting up there....

What class of rapids would this be?

I don't know how high it is, but the water is at least halfway up the trees.

On apartment's management office sits right on the water

It's going to take a lot to flood this bridge... keeping my fingers crossed

This is the "little stream" that passes through the middle of my apartment complex

You can read about the storm from the Weather Channel here. Below are some of the pictures that have been submitted by residents from areas that are flooding.

Exeter, RI

East Greenwich, RI

Warwick, RI... this is just south of Cranston AND where the airport is located.... I hope they get things opened up before my Mom comes on Friday!

Keep you posted if anything happens. Until then, keep the families that have been evacuated or lost their homes in your thoughts and prayers.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

When I got into the car to go to work on Friday, my dashboard display didn’t appear like it normally did. Instead of showing the time and temperature, it read “ICE POSSIBLE.” That’s when I knew winter had finally hit me. For almost a week, the entire state of Rhode Island talked about the snow forecast for the area. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention for a couple of reasons 1.The past week flew by- I still have so much to do before I leave for vacation 2. The RI natives (and most people from New England) go on and on about how awful the winters are here and I was getting sick of hearing about it. On The Weather Channel’s website, you can enter two zip codes and their average temperatures using a graphing function. When you put 46032 up against 02896, here are the results:

The average high's for both zip codes, with Carmel represented by the orange line.

And now the average lows...North Smithfield is in light blue

The main difference is the amount of annual precipitation but not by that much... North Smithfield gets 6 inches more each year


This weekend I picked up some extra shifts at various pharmacies in the area. I worked Friday from 4-9 PM and Saturday from 5-9 PM. On my way to work on Saturday, the pharmacy supervisor for my district called me desperately looking for someone to cover a sick-call for Sunday in Pawtucket. Without hesitation, I happily agreed- who can’t use a little extra spending money around the holidays?

When I got to work on Saturday night, I started talking with the staff (FYI- this store was in Warwick), and they described how busy they had been that day. Their theory was that people were getting their errands done before the big snow hit. Hmmm… at this point I remembered Deb telling me we were expected to get up to 12 inches of snow on Sunday and to call the weather line before I came into work on Monday. It turns out we were expected to get 12-16 inches of snow late Saturday night and early into Sunday morning. Now, I’m usually not a skeptical person at all, but the wheels in my head started turning for some reason. Even though I’m sure it’s highly unlikely (ha!), I started to think that the pharmacist who called in sick wasn’t sick at all! At this point, I still didn’t mind waking up early to work 8 AM- 4 PM.

As I’m driving home on Saturday night, the snow starts to come down. The snow initially didn’t stick, and my ride back to Slatersville didn’t cause any problems. After I got ready to get some sleep, I looked out the window and saw that several inches of snow had already accumulated. Oh boy…

I ended up waking up at 5:45 AM to dig my car out and get ready for work. I had completely forgotten to pick up a shovel, so I armed myself with the tools I thought might help completed the job: a large spatula, a tennis racket, and a cookie sheet.

I must have looked ridiculous carrying these things out in the snow

Turns out, I’m a really lucky girl. Two of my neighbors were outside shoveling their cars out, too, and one of them gave me the largest scraper I’ve seen in my life. The other neighbor shoveled 90% of the snow for me! If I didn’t have them helping me, I would have been in a world of hurt. I went back inside to shower, gather my things, and leave for the store. When I went back outside, at least 3 more inches had accumulated on my car (45 minutes, maybe?).

This is crazy…

Take a look at the cars- good luck going anywhere

Unless you're one of the few people getting to go to work (which includes me)... here is a picture of my car

This is a cigarette butt disposal can (I don’t know what the name is, but I do know that I hate it- people stand right outside the door and smoke… YUCK!) to give you an idea of the amount of accumulation

For what normally would have taken me less than 30 minutes, my drive to the store ended up taking more than an hour. RIDICULOUS. The trucks and plows had been out all night trying to stay on top of the snow, but it was coming down so quickly that they struggled to keep the roads clear. I did not get any faster than 30 miles per hour, even though I was sometimes driving on a highway with a speed limit of 65 mph. I had several people pass me going much too quickly, and two or three of them ended up fish-tailing in front of me (defensive driving is so important here, even without the snow). I had to pull over twice to scrape my windshield off and get my bearings on where exactly the road started and stopped. I finally made it to the store without becoming lost but got stuck trying to get into the pharmacy parking lot.

It was pretty slow at the store today, which was a nice change. Don’t get me wrong- I still filled prescriptions almost the entire time I was there (it is a very high volume store that does over 5K prescriptions every week). After work I drove to babysit for Lorna and Craig, who were going to a nice dinner on Federal Hill and to see Wicked (so jealous!).

After the kids had gone to bed and were sound asleep, I poked around the kitchen to get a bite for myself. I found some Sun Chips that I’d been meaning to try and wanted a icy-cold Diet Coke to go with it. I noticed that they had an extra refrigerator/freezer combo in their garage, so I thought I’d take a look to see if they were stashing the caffeine there. They have an alarm system, so when I opened the door, a voice spoke, “Garage door opened.” Not wanting to set anything off, I closed the door behind me…..

Do you know what happened next? I know it’s hard to believe, but I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried…

I locked myself out of the house.

Surprisingly, I didn’t panic- I just had a good laugh at myself. It took an expensive, traumatizing experience for me to learn my lesson never to lock myself out of my own house, but apparently I had not yet learned how to apply to rules to others’ homes. I only had on black workout pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and slippers, then rummaged around the garage to find a set of gloves and a headband. I tried to look for a set of keys but didn’t have any luck. I also couldn’t find a garage door opener at first , but the car that was left in the garage had it programmed onto a button. I went around the house (I felt like such a creep!) and tried all of the other doors (all locked) and looked at the windows (also locked). The next step was to go over to the neighbors to see if they had a key (which they didn’t), but they did call the fire department for me. The fire department arrived in five minutes and opened the door in less than that.

If you don’t know me very well, I’m sure this post makes me seem so incompetent, but I promise that I’m much more educated that what this story might point you towards. Never a dull moment, though...