"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect." Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Note the image,  this is how my car almost looked this morning!  Just before the alarm was about to wake me with the wonderful voices from NPR, thunder began to rumble, lightning lit up the sky and then the rain began to fall.  I say fall, but it was more like the sky opened up and dumped buckets in my neighborhood.  I like a good thunderstorm, and I would have preferred to stay in bed and just enjoy it, but excellent employee that I am, I hauled my self out of bed and got dressed.  

I fed the cats, brought in the milk, fixed my lunch,  fed the dogs and prepared to let them out.  Uma, the sweetest beagle/lab mix ever looked up at me with those soulful big brown eyes that seemed to say,  I have to go, but are you nuts?  She bravely went out the door and came back in as quickly as possible,  no chasing and barking at squirrels this morning.   

I fed the fish and grabbed my lunch, cell phone, glasses and wallet and prepared to brave the weather.  I backed out of the driveway and approached the 4 way stop.  Now I could tell how deep the water was in the next block,  you see I was silly enough a couple of years ago to think it was not that deep, entered it and promptly got stuck right in the middle.  The car died and would not start until the water receded and the engine dried out.

So I very cleverly turned left to go around the block.  Things were going well until I say a man in a yellow rain slicker with a long stick in his hand.  He hailed me and I rolled down the window just far enough to talk to him.  He said, " You'd better slow down ( now I was only driving about 25mph anyway) because it is really deep."  Aha! another deceptively deep bit of water hiding in the bend in the road.  I told him I had not been able to get down my street and perhaps I should turn around and try the next road over.  He agreed, and went back to prodding the leaves and debris away from the sewer openings. I was beginning to think I would not be able to get out of my neighborhood this morning with out a rowboat!

Well the next road over was clear!  I felt very clever indeed.   I drove carefully, looking for deep pockets of water on the road. I got in the left lane on Florida Ave., because you see I know where the water pools there.  Okay, so there wasn't any water in the right lane today, usually it is a lake when the rain comes down like it did this morning.   I was feeling very clever! I went about my usual route and on the last left turn, I was dumbstruck.  There I was caught on a street with no way out, one half block from my building, and the water was deep, very deep.

I was quite alarmed, having been stranded in a flash flood before, I was left with no choice, I slowed down entered the pool, prayed to get through.  I approached the 4 way stop, and didn't! I was afraid to.  I made the left and pulled into my parking spot, feeling very thankful that I had made it through.

Perhaps the next time I feel trapped in the house by the fear of flash floods,  I should just stay home and enjoy the storm.  Oh and we have a tornado watch for today.  What a way to start the day!