I woke up last Thursday morning around 6:30, as usual, snuggled up next to Jamieson in the bed in his room. After a few minutes, he made it clear that neither he nor I were going back to sleep. So I groped around for my glasses, sat up, and opened the curtains…

… to a snow-covered backyard.

Snow!

2.5 inches of it, to be precise.

The most wonderfully magical part about it was that I had no idea it was supposed to snow. Normally I am very diligent about following the weather forecast. I like to know what’s coming. Parenthood has not exactly taken that interest away, but it’s definitely left me with far less time and energy to check in on the weather every day. So when I opened the curtains to an unexpected field of sparkling white, it was quite a thrill!

We all got up and put on our shoes and coats and headed out to the backyard. Jamie wasn’t quite sure what to make of the snow. Last time he experienced it was on Christmas Eve and it didn’t really seem to register at that point.

He spent a little time mucking about and poking at it with his fingers. I had to leave for work soon, so we went inside and had breakfast.

It continued to snow all day long. My office closed at 3:00 because it didn’t seem to be letting up, and people in Texas freak out when there is any kind of winter precipitation, even in the tiniest amount.

The snow continued all afternoon and into the evening. We took Jamie outside for a while and this time, he was pretty excited about it. He stomped around and laughed and sat down and tasted the snow and generally had a great time.

Later in the evening, the snow was still coming down, and it was a really wet heavy snow. The branches of our crape myrtle trees were bowed down almost to the ground, so we went outside and tried to shake off as much snow as we could with a rake to try to prevent them from breaking. Doc did that several more times throughout the night. I think he saved the trees by doing that. There were so many tree branches down all over town by the next morning.

Work was cancelled for me (although I did a lot of work from home during the day) on Friday. The official snowfall total was 12.5 inches, an all-time record for our area, and making this the second snowiest year on record, to date. I measured 11 inches at our house. We were very lucky that we didn’t lose power and that our neighbor’s live oak tree didn’t drop any branches onto our cars parked underneath. Some of our friends had damage to house and cars from branches, and many more were without power for hours or days.

The amount was astounding. I have never seen this much snow in my life outside of a mountaintop.

You can click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow of the photos and video we took.

Brittney and I watched the Fair Park fireworks show tonight. The weather was unusually temperate for July in Texas – my weather widget says 85 right now, an hour after the show began, but it didn’t feel that warm. We staked out a choice spot on the Buckner/Peavy hill, and while the show was kind of far away, we had a completely unobstructed view of downtown, the lake, and the display. Big bonus: There were maybe 100 people total at our spot, so we had no problem whatsoever with traffic.

Afterwards we walked over to a little playground that probably dates from the 1950s or 1960s, and sat on the teeter-totter for a while (or “see-saw” if you prefer). It was solid metal, built out of pipes. It had been painted many times over and the paint had flaked off into different layers. The seats were just metal rectangles and they weren’t so kind to grown-up thighs. Note to self: wear jeans. Note to Brittney: maybe not a miniskirt next time. Good thing it was dark!

And just for amusement’s sake, here is a photo of my crazy Martini. Check out that insane look in her eyes. She loves crawling underneath blankets and poking her head out.

We smelled smoke the minute we stepped out the door from work this afternoon. And as soon as we turned on to Greenville Avenue we saw the huge black billowing plumes. Gloria’s had the television turned on and we watched the Arcadia sign crash through the roof as we drank margaritas (a diet coke for me) and ate tortilla soup.

Nate had to drive north and got blocked for a while trying to get around all the hoopla. Brittney recalled several concerts she’d been to there. I don’t remember the last time I was there but it made me sad; the building is — WAS — a beautiful example of historic 1920s architecture. The whole strip of stores and restaurants attached to the theatre burned to the ground tonight. Goodbye, Arcadia Theatre.

Tales from the dumbshit files: So this is what I saw on the way to work yesterday. From the picture you might think that it’s just a truck doing road construction, but it is in fact the crane that slammed into and got stuck underneath the bridge yesterday morning. The official story is that the driver raised the crane arm earlier in the morning to check the hydraulics, then forgot to lower it before driving off. Apparently he was arrested at the scene for outstanding warrants.

Congratulations to Colleen (Kim’s little sister) and her husband Jason on their brand new baby girl, Anna, born this morning. I still can’t believe that Colleen had a baby! She’s perpetually nine years old in my mind, squirting us with water guns. Damn, that makes me feel old.

Today was a better day than yesterday. I did not injure myself in any way (but hey, the day’s not over yet!) and I ran 3 miles, which is double what I ran last night. My scrapes and scratches hurt like hell. I cleaned up with peroxide last night, and then decided (dumbshit move) to use a bit of rubbing alcohol for good measure. So I poured some onto my scraped-raw knee…. and almost fainted. Holy McFuck, did that ever hurt!

Lack of protective skin + alcohol = Very Bad Idea.