Baby, it's cold outside!

This won't be shocking for nearly anyone living in the United States or anyone who owns a television or participates in social media.

There's a bit of a cold spell on.

Seriously though, despite the snowy days in the past two (academic!) years, this is the coldest I can remember it ever getting here, and I've been here for 13 years! I cannot ever remember it dropping below 20F.

And we're having rolling blackouts because the energy companies were SO not ready for this - to the point of having power plants and grids offline for maintenance. Oops! This morning, traffic was bad because power was off in certain areas during rush hour. And schools had to redirect children because the power was out. Quite the mess.

Also - snow and sleet starting tomorrow afternoon, snow overnight! and snow through Friday morning into the afternoon! Also, ice! Former - AWESOME! (sticky! inches of it! Fantastic!) Latter - SUCKY and SCARY!

Work - remember the folks who sent us home way late to prepare for Hurricane Ike and returned us to work a mere three days after the hurricane, when there was no gas or power throughout the city and debris still covered roads? Yeah, them - has made no decision about an early release or a snow day or delayed start on Friday. Because doing it beforehand would be tragic and ensure sunny weather in the 70's, no doubt. Far better to get people out of bed early to watch the news crawl and scour the internet for word. . .

Yes, so I'm not taking Grover out in snowy or icy conditions. Because I like Grover and don't know what the fuck I'm doing in snowy or icy conditions. And neither does anyone I know. And Houstonians are fucking morons who drive 65+ (over the speed-limit, in other words) in pouring rain you can't see through. I'm not feeling particularly suicidal at the moment, so . . . yeah. Not gonna happen.

I'm not alone. There has been general mutiny in our office, and a declaration that we'll all be working from home.

I'm curious to see who caves. 'Myself' is a viable option, given what all I've been doing over the last few days. Every time, without fail, that I think I'm gaining ground on things, I learn the hard way that that is so not true. The only piece of good news relating to work today is that when I was escorted in to the big-boss's office to explain how one of my departments lost a very valuable master key that would open up very expensive equipment to theft, he informed me that my supervisors and directors are very happy with me and my work. The official letter of reprimand I'm receiving this week for something that happened before my tenure (but which I had to clean up, thus putting my name on a request to the company president for an exception to policy, and thus meaning I'm one of the recipients of the official letter of reprimand!) and I are happy to hear it. Oh, so very happy. Because really, the letter of reprimand is a formality and an annoyance and in no way attached to my record, but the job reclassification that is going to be on big-boss's desk in the next week ensuring that I get the higher salary permanently and that I don't have to make good on my threat to walk out of this job benefits from big-boss hearing I'm worth the time/effort and money.

Work. Ugh.

Cold weather. Ugh. Did I mention my poor jasmine was about to bloom? For the first time in three years? :( And my esperanza is frozen, again, as is my lantana. However, they both came back from last year's frozen death, so fingers crossed. We did cover the jasmine, but I expect the flowering is derailed for another few years. . .

But! Let's end on a positive note.

SNOW! ACCUMULATIONS OF SNOW!

Also, some chance (a snowball's chance in hell seems decent odds this week) that my cycle may be normalizing after a two + month hiatus. Let's hope so, because if it is so, we can start considering ttc again soon. Dunno when or if, but it would be nice to have the choice to make.

Also, SNOW. Hee. If it happens, you'll get pictures.