Call it the snow-flop-aclypse.
On the weekend, they were predicting we’d get 2-4″ of snow yesterday. The closer we got to the appointed hour, the less sure the forecasters were about what would happen. I woke up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and looked out the kitchen window, hoping to see flurries or, even better, a light coating of snow on the lawn. Alas, no.
That didn’t stop the city of Houston from canceling everything—the day before, just as they had at the end of last week. Schools, city services, courts, everything shut before there was the hint of a drop of precipitation. Friday had been a mess. Tuesday, not so much. True, after I drove into work, the temperature did fall below freezing and there was some sleet that people tried to tell themselves was snow. I don’t know if there’s a word for what they created out of the frozen rain. Sleetmen? Can’t blame people for trying. Still, there was nothing near the traffic problems that we saw on Friday and, alas, no snow.
I started watching The Americans, the FX series starring Keri Russell (Felicity), Noah Emmerich, Richard “John Boy” Thomas and Margo (“Mags Bennett”) Martindale. It’s about a couple of embedded KGB agents living near Washington in the early 1980s. They’re living as a married couple, have two kids. It’s interesting to be re-immersed in the Cold War. One episode takes place around the Reagan shooting. The FBI is trying to figure out if the Russians were somehow involved and the Russians are trying to figure out if the Americans think they were involved. Tense times. There are two other complications: the two spies are starting to fall in love with each other, and an FBI agent (Emmerich) and his family move in across the street. Also, the spies have to sleep with a lot of people as part of their espionage, so that complicates their relationship. It’s quite good. I should be up to speed by the time the second season starts at the end of February.
