Living in the Wild West

This photo is taken at a wild west exhibit when I was about 2 or 3. The woman with my mother and me is my Grandmother, Dorothy Evans King. She raised me (along with Grandpa, Ones Presley King or O.P.) My mom and I went to live with them after the divorce. I now refer to her as 6-foot-tall Grandma, to differentiate her from any other grandmas. She was the third wife, fourth marriage (Grandpa married one of his wives twice) for O.P. King. Boy, could she cook! Cornbread and red beans and Grandpa making steaks- yum.

Yesterday, we went to the cemetery to visit their graves. My Grandpa actually has a figure of a football player on his cemetery marker (He was a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, of course). I took a photo of it for later. Only in Texas…

Throughout my childhood, and on subsequent visits, the Texas weather in the winter has always been temperate. From time to time it is cold, but usually in January and February. I have lots of photos of Christmas Day, me on a new bicycle, with no coat on.

Today it is 17 degrees with whipping wind, ice and snow (just a little, but that’s all it takes), and I did not bring a coat.

When I went to sleep last night there were only a few cars in the parking lot of the hotel. Now the parking lot is full. There were over 100 serious accidents yesterday during the evening commute, and there are already many this morning. They are closing all the off ramps and the public schools are closed.

They do not have salt for the roads, just dirt. Remember, W is from here. Can you say ‘unprepared’?

If I am lucky, I will stay in all day. We got most of the important things done through yesterday. Today I am going to enter all my mother’s medications into a database and select her suggested Medicare Part D plan. That is my good deed for the day. If it clears up, my mother wants to go to Wal-Mart, which I have so far managed to avoid, but I see no way out of that one.