So the weather has been interesting in the ATX of late. On Saturday it was nearly 80* and sunny. I wore shorts and a t-shirt(and rode around Martindale on my BIL's bike, which had a small battery powered radio tied to the handle bars with a shoe string, fortunately for the neighborhood it had plenty of power to blast out some tejano music while the wife and I rode around the town, did I mention I was wearing a pair of large lady shades b/c mine were stranded in P'ville). So back to the weather, on Tuesday it decided to snow, not barely snow, but snow for 6-7 hrs. We are talking several inches of snow and it stuck to the ground.
Pics are from in and around the park by my office.
So it has never snowed this much in ATX in my memory. So of course I needed to go for a walk in it during my break. It was great. I just kept thinking to myself how lucky I was to be able to see this park covered in snow, and how I wanted to take a mental picture so I wouldn't forget what a great scene was unfolding in front of me. Then I got caught up in the moment. I decided to walk out to the perfect spot and make a snow angel. Of course the perfect spot was a good 1/4 mile or so from my office out in this snowy park meadow.
Now I have had my fun and unknowingly challenged snow's authority. I forgot that my car keys were in my jacket pocket, and when I flopped back to make my angel, they found wings of their own. So I made my angelic likeness, sprang up, snapped my pic, and marched through the snow, back to work so proud of myself. Only 15 min later did I realize I had no car keys. So I checked every pocket 3 times and told myself surely they are not out there somewhere. But of course that's where they are. So I explain to my boss how my keys are in the park. "I think I lost my keys in the park over break" "
Are you serious""Yep, I really think they are out there, they must fallen out of my pocket somewhere""
What like on a bench, were you sitting on a bench in the snow?""No... I didn't sit on a bench""
Are you messing with me? This sounds made up?""No, I wish, I wish I had my keys, but I don't, I feel like I should go look for them""
How will you know where to find them?".......long pause..... "I was making a snow angel and stuff falls out of the pockets of this jacket pretty easy"........another long pause....."
alright then, do what you have to do" So now I look like a complete idiot. So I trudge out there, a little more urgency in my step. The snow doesn't look quite as charming as before. I find where the angel was. The snow is coming down pretty hard. And I am on my hands and knees digging around for car keys. I finally found them and my hands are freezing(which makes it easier to make snow balls once your hands go a little numb) so I walk back to work making snowballs along the way and throwing them at light posts, trash cans, the occasional tree that I pretend is some NFL wide receiver and I am throwing a winning TD pass. Just when I feel victory over the snow..... I feel it. My feet. My feet are soaked to the bone. They are cold really cold. And my shoes are so wet. My jeans are too, mid-way up the calf. I hurry back to work, but the damage is done. Now I squeak and squish with every step through the hall ways. I keep taking my shoes off under my cube desk, but everyone wants me to answer some dumb question. So I have to pull them back on with one hand while I pretend to be finishing an email and "I will be right with you"(similar thing happened last week when my boss caught me putting on deodorant in my cube, I quickly tried to hide it between my legs but when I turned to answer his question it spun out of my chair and fell to the floor by his feet, yeah..... um......right.... let me just kick that under the desk real quick while you look at me and forget your question). This goes on for almost 2 hrs I can't take it anymore, so I go out to the car, dig out some old socks from the trunk. At least I have dry socks in my wet shoes (T always warned me of this in Chicago, "it seems fun to play in the snow, but your tennis shoes will get wet, and then there is no going back") I make it trough the day OK, minus the pounding migraine from 12.30 - 5.45.
The next day, I decided that I needed to make peace with the snow.
The only real way to do this is to make a man out of snow to pay homage for being defeated. So I built my snow man and took a picture with my phone. I gave the snow further respect by emailing the pic to my wife with the customary "Greetings From the North Pole" subject line. She seemed to like it. I took it to the final level by making this guy my desktop screen on my office computer. What can I say, I was over-matched by a better fighter, I had all the gumption but snow had the endurance to take me down in the later in the rounds. Maybe in a few more years I'll get another shot at the belt.
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