Waiting for a cold snap...

I am once again wearing a long-sleeved shirt (even though my outdoor thermometer is reading 84 at the moment… but it’s right in the sun, so it might not be accurate…). It was 63 degrees when I got up this morning. 63 degrees! I believe that’s the coolest it’s been in about six months. I am so ready for cooler weather. Which is why, once again, I’m refusing to change into a short-sleeved shirt. Even though I’m really a bit too warm right now. It’s a tad stuffy in this room… just a smidgen past comfy… kinda suffocating, actually. Okay, you know what? I give up… gotta go change…

Sigh… I must admit the short sleeve shirt DOES feel better right now. The neglected long-sleeved shirts in my wardrobe will have to lie idle for a little while longer. And my poor sweaters won’t be seeing the light of day until December or January, I fear. Actually, if we spend Christmas in Montana (which seems to be the plan at the moment), I’ll at least be guaranteed a few cold sweater-wearin’ days near the holiday. Unless northwest Montana is suddenly hit with unseasonably warm weather.

My cousins Steve and Kevin have been in town this week… Steve left a couple days ago, and Kevin is here until Friday. Yesterday we were talking about the last time Steve and Kevin were both in Austin at the same time – it was way back in 1984. Which also happens to be the last time Austin has seen any REAL snow. Oh, we’ve had an occasional flake or two – and one outright accumulating snowfall that resulted in three inches of the white stuff one February day at around 2 in the morning. Of course, it was completely gone a few hours later. (And I wasn’t even here – I was up in New Jersey, so Rick emailed me a couple pictures as proof of the event.) But most of the “snow” we’ve seen since 1984 has amounted to nothing more than a dusting of powdered sugar on a coffee cake.

That snowfall in 1984 was so steady and relentless than the airport shut down and Steve and Kevin were unable to return to their cold, hundreds-of-times-more-snowy-than-Austin home in Buffalo. And it remained firmly stuck to the ground for at least 24 hours or so – long enough that we were able to make snowballs and perhaps even a pitiful little snowman. Snowmen – even pitiful representations – are quite rare in Austin.

I always think it’s funny when people in Austin get excited about the “snow” we manage to see. Most of the time, I don’t even think it’s actual “snow” – it’s more like frost that happens to form on various surfaces, melting once the temperature rises half a degree. So just so everyone is clear about the snow/not snow difference:

This is snow. (This is looking down the driveway of my parents’ old house in New Jersey.)

Here's some more snow. This IS the driveway of my parents’ house – that little bit of black peeking out was my dad’s car.

And this is a bag of powdered sugar.

Hopefully it all makes sense now.