A Winter Wonderland, Of Sorts

It's not Snowpocalype .. yet. Hopefully, it will not get there.

(Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by hitting the Like button at the bottom, subscribing to this newsletter, and recommending it to others.)

It’s 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, the day of Texas’s first real brush with winter weather and therefore the subject of great anticipation and purchasing of toilet paper. I was in a grocery story yesterday afternoon filled with shoppers either prudent or panicky, depending on your outlook — and depending on what happens. Bottled water and toilet paper were, as they say, flying off the shelves, but also pasta, pasta sauce and other consumables in quantities for which the grocer was unprepared.

As of now, here in Austin, we’ve had a very respectable rainfall that lasted until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and now we have a bit of snow mixed with freezing rain to paint my backyard. I mention the time because the freezing rain (sleet? what’s the difference between freezing rain and sleet?) continues to fall and, with temps below freezing, accumulate.

I may not have been paying attention in all the run-up to the storm, but the amount of rainfall caught me by surprise. NOAA tells me two inches of rain fell near my house, but my trusty weather gauge says it was more like three.

The amount of rainfall was an unwelcome surprise. Owing to its age and condition, my house is not exactly impervious to the elements, specifically rain. A good rainfall, such as last night’s, requires the placement and careful maintenance of a few pots, pans, and, in one corner, a 13-gallon trash can. For that reason, my sleep was fitful and frequently interrupted.

My house is, thankfully, warm and cozy this morning. Let’s remember all those who are not so comfy, especially those chronically unhomed, but also those who are suffering from temporary (and quickly remedied, we hope) power outages.