Tag Archives: bad weather

Mar20

Yeah, we’re married

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Yeah, we’re married

So I guess we didn’t get enough winter back in December and January, because what is UP with this freezing weather situation we have going on today?  My toes are numb, Joey just turned on the heat, and he’s building a fire.  At least that’s what it looks like he’s doing, I haven’t asked.  (He may just be cleaning out the fireplace, and if he’s doing that then major kudos to him because it really needs to be done and I keep forgetting.)

We had serious shopping we had to do today, because we had some really good coupons we needed to use before they expired.  We left at noon and got home three hours later, our shopping bags heavier and our bank account lighter.

Our last stop was Central Market, and we took our sweet time moving through the aisles (because it was a Saturday and we hate going on a Saturday, but it’s not worth risking road rage trying to dodge the crazy Saturday People who have the carts that are the size of Greyhound busses and stand there blocking traffic while they yakkity yak on their cell phones.)

By the time we made it to the end of the store, we were bushwhacked.

So Joey decided to run and get the car while I loaded up the bags and paid for our groceries.  Because it’s fah-reezing outside and I was a moron and didn’t wear a coat because I thought it would be “inconvenient”.

What wound up being more inconvenient was me squealing with cold every time we went from the car to a store.

But whatevs.

So I handed the produce tags to the cashier and told him they were the prices for our fresh items, which we do not put in plastic bags, we have our own cotton ones we bring every week.  He was like, woah, you two are power shoppers, and I was all, thanks dude, I KNOW.

I stood at the end of the conveyor belt and loaded up our reusable bags with our purchases.

And the checker dude, who appeared to be mid-twenties?, looked at me with the reusable produce and shopping bags and he said, “You guys are seriously organized.  Are you going to get married anytime soon?”

I busted out laughing.  I couldn’t contain myself.  I mean, I realize I had no makeup on (confession: I do not wear makeup on Saturdays unless dire circumstances call for it; and I don’t do my hair neithers) so I looked like  I was about 20.  But I kept laughing and said, “Oh, we’ve been married for five years now.”

Checker dude just about lost his jaw because it hit the floor so fast.

“Well….well…..did you propose to him or did he propose to you?”

Internet, no one has EVER asked me that question before.  Never.  Ever.

I tried not to laugh again, and told him that Joey had proposed to me.  Because we were old-school.

When I related this little story to Joey later, he was totally fixated on fact that I had said we were old school.  (I guess he doesn’t think we’re old school?)  Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t.  I guess it’s up for debate.

(This just in: Joey DID start a fire.  The man reads my mind.  I love him.)

Dec9

LOOK AT ALL THIS SNOW I’M MISSING

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LOOK AT ALL THIS SNOW I’M MISSING

Joey’s mom sent us this picture last night.  This a view of their back patio after almost a full day of snow and, notice, it is still snowing.

Joey and I can’t remember what this is, but we think it’s a table on the back patio.  I don’t think it’s a Weber grill, because I don’t remember them having one.  It’s 12 inches of snow, though.

ONE FOOT.

That’s so much snow that it would get over the top of my bright blue boots that I haven’t gotten to wear in three years.

Iowa is so cool.

I don’t think it has stopped snowing yet, either.  At least in Cedar Rapids, where I’m from, Pops told me it wasn’t supposed to stop until noon today, and that it was a full-fledged blizzard with gusty winds and dangerous conditions.  Naturally Joey and I looked at the clock and thought “gosh, if we started driving now we could make it by…”

But then we remembered what it was like when we got caught in a whiteout last Thanksgiving on the way to his parents’ house, and we reconsidered.  It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to us, no joke.

Anyway, we are really sad to miss the blizzard.

All of you whiny Iowa people who are all I hate this snow! this morning, you should remember that if you lived in Texas you’d never even SEE snow.  So appreciate it with some hot chocolate for about ten minutes on our behalf, and then get back to your whining.

kthx.

Oct5

Nothing To Report

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Nothing To Report

So…I have nothing to post about.  Like, zero things.  So I’m going to post about how I have nothing to post about, just see if I don’t.  This weekend was comprehensively average.  And that was just fine with me.  We did nothing exciting, and had nothing exciting happen to us.

Well, unless if you count the walk in the rainstorm on Saturday night, that’s not very average.  See, it was all raining and whatever.  I love rain and I love thunder and I love lightning and I love high winds, and I love taking walks in all of the above, so Joey thought it would be a good time for us to go for a walk.  But for some reason, I was feeling all homebody and didn’t want to go out.

“Well, I’d consider if if we walked to Starbucks and got a Caramel Macchiato,” I said.

“Are those good?” Joey asked.

“They are good,” I replied.

So I put on my trench, rolled my pant legs up to mid-calf and we located our two huge umbrellas, and off we walked in the pouring rain.  It was seriously coming down, so I was thankful that we each had our own ginormous umbrella to keep us dry, and they really worked.

We arrived at Starbucks only a little wet.  Caramel Macchiato in hand, we then headed towards PetSmart, which was about 3/4 of a mile away, to look at the kittens.  I’m sure anyone who drove past us thought we were loony, walking down Greenville in the rain with our Starbucks, but who really cares about those people anyway.

The walk in the rain turned out to be just the thing for a dreary Saturday evening, and it was good we hadn’t driven to PetSmart because there was this super cute Maine Coon kitten that I wanted LIKE REALLY BAD, but Joey was right to make me leave it.

So we walked home.

By then the rain had stopped, and there’s almost nothing more annoying than trying to carry a HUGE and WET umbrella without getting all the water on your jeans.

End of story.

May12

Some Stuff

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Some Stuff

#1.  I got a new haircut.  I do not like it and if I could glue my hair back on without it looking weird, I would.

#2.  The rainy, gloomy weather is giving me Spring Blahs instead of Spring Fever.  Thus, I have nothing to say on this here blog.

#3.  My mouth hurts because I bit my cheek.

#4.  And yet I still want a cupcake.

#5.  I have to iron tonight.  I’m pre-emptively poking my eye out in anticipation of the fun to be had this evening.

#6.  Joey’s working on 60 second clips of why students came to DTS, etc, and he filmed the first one last week.  Austin edited it, and this was the outcome.

Pretty sure Bailey’s not going to approve that…

Feb11

The Storm

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The Storm

Last night, after a busy evening of mall shopping, laundry doing, kitchen cleaning and clothes ironing, I sat down on the couch with my crossword puzzle, intent on knocking those crossed words outta the ballpark.

I was only to 10 Across when suddenly I heard a wailing sound outside.

“Are those…tornado sirens?” Joey and I asked each other, at just about the same moment.

We jumped up and went to the sliding glass door and looked outside.  The trees were still, there was no rain, but the clouds were billowing, black and moving with great speed.  In the two years we’ve lived here, we have never heard tornado sirens once.

Not once.

Granted, we used to hear them once a month back in The Iowa, but we had basements up there. (I recall spending more than one evening in the basement at Dave’s, looking at shopping carts full of horse chestnuts and wondering why in the world he had so many and what one uses hundreds and hundreds of horse chestnuts for.)

So we turned on the weather radio and called Pops to have him check RADAR.

“The tornado sirens are going off but there’s no weather,” we told him.

That was because the storm was moving with great rapidity, said Pops, and the bad stuff was about to hit us.

As soon as he told us that, the trees bent over and the rains began to pour forth from the heavens.  It was almost like Pops had predicted the onset of the bad weather, but since the site he was looking at had a five minute delay, it seems more likely that it was lucky timing.  The tornado sirens continued to wail eerily in the background, causing the hair on the back of my neck to raise and giving me the feral feeling that I needed to go dig myself a basement somewhere, using my hands if need be.

Turns out tornado sirens don’t just mean tornados down here.  They also mean severe thunderstorms, high winds, and maybe there might be a tornado.

Alas, 24 years of conditioning is not easily undone.  To my well-trained brain, tornado sirens mean “Billy spotted a tornado when he was out on the tornado-spotting crew down on Stamy, and so you all better hit the basement because it’s already on its way to you.”

The storm was pretty exciting, I’ll grant you that, but I was surprised by how wigged out the sirens made me.

Jan28

ICE!

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ICE!

Last night, I got my wish.  It iced and iced and iced (OK, for Texas) and this morning at 6:15 I woke up a glittering ice-land.  I was so excited.  I stood by the sliding glass door and wiggled internally with excitement.

Just then, Joey’s phone beeped three times.  (Read: he received a text message.)  I heard him yell “YES!” from the bedroom, so I went to go check it out.

“DTS is cancelled today.” He said, then almost immediately fell back asleep, even though in all the excitement Henry had jumped up on the bed (which he usually doesn’t do – he hates sleeping on the bed, which is fine with me) and had curled up where Joey’s legs were supposed to go, thereby short-sheeting poor Joey.

I did not fall back asleep. I was too excited about the ice.

So after an hour or so I finally got up, emptied the dishwasher and folded some blankets we had been using to keep ourselves warm last night.  It is amazing and shocking how quickly we are adjusting to the “OH MY GOSH IT IS SO COLD OUTSIDE” thing.  We were wrapped up like burritos for the whole evening, except when we were eating the Sloppy Joe’s I made for dinner. (I told Joey they were his special food since he kind of is a sloppy Joe, but not TOO sloppy.)

Where was I?

Oh yeah, commuting.

So ten minutes before I wanted to leave, Joey announced that he would be driving me.

“I want to make sure you get there safe,” he said.

I argued for about 2 minutes, then gave in and said “OKfine, you can take me” because I really didn’t want to drive on the ice.  But I also didn’t want him to have to drive both ways on the ice.

Joey seemed pleased with himself over his victory, and he bundled himself up in his Columbia, hat and gloves and went outside to scrape the car, which was glazed in a thickish layer of ice.

Twenty minutes later, he had the car scraped, warmed and we were on our way.  The roads were hazardous.  It took thirty five minutes to make a fifteen minute drive, and we had several near-miss sightings.  (Fortunately none of them involved us.)

Joey’s home now, but the drive back took him almost twice as long because a DART bus slid sideways somehow and blocked our street, so he had to go all the way around.

I didn’t get to make my ice ball (I was too focused on not wiping out in the heels I was wearing) but I did squish an icy leaf, which was almost as fun.

Ahhh, I love the winter weather.

Rumor has it that it’ll be in the 60′s this weekend.  LAME.

Jan27

Ice, ice baby…

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Ice, ice baby…

WHERE IS MY ICE STORM!?

Last night before bed I prayed (and I quote) “Lord, please give us lots of ice tomorrow.  I just want to make a snowball, so snow would be the best, but I realize Dallas isn’t the best place for snow, so I’d love a whole bunch of ice.  Then I could make an ice ball.  Plus I really miss winter.”

(I’m sure none of the rest of you ever pray for ice because you miss the Great White North – not Canada, in this case I’m referring to IOWA – but I did.  And don’t worry, I prayed about other stuff too, not just ice.)

So this morning I woke up late and ran to the sliding glass door where I looked out upon…

…a very wet balcony.

With no ice on it.

Not even a little bit.

“There’s no ice, ” I told Joey.

“Oh…that’s too bad…” he mumbled, and reset his alarm for 6:40.

Somehow we made it out the door by 7:30, and the roads were wet but not even a tiny bit slippery.  It was a grave disappointment.  The weatherman kept saying “with temperatures continuing to fall throughout the day…” and once in awhile the TrafficPulse guy would mention how the High 5 HOV lane was closed due to ice, but seriously.  None of that was affecting me, and I sure hadn’t made my ice ball yet, so I was not encouraged by the reports of falling temperatures and icy HOV lanes.

Additionally, aside from the Weather Underground telling me that the temp will drop and the misty rain will turn to ice, I have little comfort when I look at the RADAR and find it to be absolutely clear.

If it does freeze later today and ice pellets actually start accumulating, you can bet there will be one happy Jenna screaming and sliding around and attempting to gather up enough pellets to make an ice ball.

Sep3

Everyone gets a hurricane but me

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Everyone gets a hurricane but me

I am tropically depressed.  Stupid Gustav was supposed to come all the way to Texas as a tropical depression and I was going to have my very first hurricane ever.  It was perfect, too, because he wouldn’t be super powerful so he wouldn’t really hurt anyone, just blow lots of trees around and make leaves go flying.

Since Thursday I have been stalking Weather Underground.  (Well, Brother had been helping…mostly telling me where to look and then explaining the symbols.)  On Thursday I really got my hopes up because at that time it said it would be Category 1 when it got here…but by Friday I realized that was never going to happen.

FIVE of my immediate family members (on the Laird side) have their very own hurricanes.  I am so jealous.

Andrew (but his was so bad that it got retired in 1992) was replaced by Alex, but Alex isn’t due to come around again until 2010.  Josephine (Joey’s arch-femesis) is brewing up in the Atlantic right now, and Laura is probably going to pop up in a week or two.  Douglas wound up being really disappointing earlier this year…we figured a storm named after Pops would at least reach hurricane strength, but it fizzled at Tropical Storm status.  Poor dad.  Maybe in 10 years.

Jun17

Mud and Slime — Dad’s Office After The Flood

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Mud and Slime — Dad’s Office After The Flood

Dad got in his office yesterday.  Here are some pictures of his beautiful office in a great part of downtown.  (Only it looks a little muddy right now.)

Mom’s desk is behind this window.  Normally you can see her cute little face when you walk past, but not so much after all that water.  I cannot believe how high it got…I cannot believe it.

The conference room’s window, broken out from the force of the water.

This is the inside of Dad’s conference room.  The mud left creative swirlies on the walls which, in all honesty, it would have been nicer not to have.  There’s strange brown sludge and goo from who knows where all over the floor.

There definitely used to be wall where you can see through to that large open space.  The flood waters broke out the windows in that suite next to Dad’s office and came charging through with such force that they busted the wall.  Jerks.

That’s Dad’s office…his credenza usually sits on top of his desk, and he’s never messy.

Ten bucks says this fan doesn’t work anymore.  It’s kind of amazing that it’s still sitting on Dad’s desk after everything.  (Oh, and that’s a thick layer of mud that you see coating everything.  Dad’s desk is cream/white on top.)

Mom’s desk…and can you see that water line?  Amazing.  And horrible.

What a muddy mess…

The kitchen area

This used to be a computer monitor.  Now I just think it is trash.

The good news is that all of Dad’s files stayed dry, the water never reached the mezzanine.  (WHEW!)  So that’s one good thing.  I wish I could be there to help clean up…too bad Texas is so far away from Iowa.