\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though I can close my eyes and remember how Fall\u00a0looked and seemed to me\u00a0in New England, and other foreign spots north of the Rio Grande, here in Austin, Fall looks pretty much like Summer, but with the school-aged kids rounded up like they’re supposed to be, unseen nor heard,\u00a0for the better part of the day.\u00a0 It gets a lot cooler though, sometimes in the low nineties, so that’s a treat.\u00a0 But we’ve really only two seasons around here: Summer; and what I call “Gray Slop”.\u00a0 Gray Slop is really sort\u00a0of like\u00a0Winter,\u00a0and for the most part, it’s usually cold ( a relative issue for sure(but rarely below freezing))\u00a0and gloomier than an art critic with his or her mouth duct-taped shut.\u00a0Gray Slop doesn’t start up until mid November, and\u00a0is usually over before you can get used to it,\u00a0mostly by February.\u00a0 Of course, this varies\u00a0as some days are sunny in Gray Slop here, in spite of my pessimistic outlook today. But every once in a very long while Austin gets some ice and snow, for which no one is ever prepared.\u00a0 The few times\u00a0this has happened, it’s treated like a natural disaster here, where there is never enough sand and\/or salt for the roads, and\u00a0the bridges or overpasses become ‘slip and slides’ for the gleefully surprised commuters\u00a0as they incounter\u00a0one of these rare and celebrated\u00a0snow storms.\u00a0 Most native\u00a0Austinites (that would be me,\u00a0though\u00a0‘can’t cop this plea\u00a0) have no experience driving\u00a0in icy conditions; ergo, every one hits the road ’cause it’s so white and purty and all\u00a0fallin’ down like white rice at a wedding.\u00a0So\u00a0what we have here\u00a0becomes more like a bumper car ride, than the”over the river and through the snow to grandmothers house we go”road trips that are experienced up north.\u00a0 Must be because this is so rare and we’re all\u00a0so curious here,\u00a0that we just can’t help ourselves from the temptation to go for a ride to become one with the very unusual snow.\u00a0That or we all want to think “Physics” is somewhere in east Texas, and has nothing to do with us .<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I guess the older you are, the years, the months, the days all\u00a0blur, and merge or become stagnant as they pile up,\u00a0as so many of any will tend to do.\u00a0That could lean toward disenchantment, if not an extreme case of bad attitude.\u00a0But this was not always the case, and I was not always this old, or this scarred by what horrific, but uniquely personal\u00a0damage the\u00a0exposure to all those accumulating yesterdays\u00a0has done to me, the ever popular but lonely recluse that I am.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Time has a way of shuffling the cards and always\u00a0handing me the joker, which though a constant occurrence can be a useful entity to expect, as life goes on for me: but\u00a0it’s getting kind’a old and losing that humorous quality\u00a0that this sort of \u00a0consistency might have for a much younger person.\u00a0 Luck has ‘done left the building’ around here for quite some time; but this seems to be\u00a0just the way it goes for me.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While others contend with how they deal with\u00a0their ever changing\u00a0and complex ‘hand’, here I sit with the usual smirk.\u00a0\u00a0Time does, with no exception\u00a0for any of us, have the tendency to slip right on by, as we struggle to live with\u00a0our past as well as what possible future that is dealt to us,\u00a0come Hell or high water, rain or snow.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I was in my mid-twenties (back in the McKinley administration), I had the finest 1969 Mustang any one ever dreamed about owning.\u00a0 It was the fast back model, and painted a wonderfully flashy – but at the same time irregular dark green – that did not mock the trees -but was unto it’s own unique\u00a0presence.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My parents gave me\u00a0this as a surprise for the unbelievable occurrence of my having graduating from college (hard to believe, but it happened.)\u00a0It\u00a0\u00a0had a stick shift\u00a0with a\u00a0way too powerful of a motor for a car that size, and for a stupid idiot like I was back in those days.\u00a0But my “Stang” had a sound that was a deep\u00a0rumble, with a given authority and possible power that could not be\u00a0ignored.\u00a0 By it’s very nature, being a\u00a0relatively small car with an enormous engine, ’twas\u00a0trouble for one such as I, in any circumstances.\u00a0I loved it for it’s “pick up”\u00a0as I easily\u00a0joined into my place among speeding\u00a0cars;\u00a0as it’s ability to enter the highway\u00a0with an unbelievable take off speed was, as I expertly popped that clutch into gears with an experienced manner,\u00a0very unlike your average young woman in\u00a0those\u00a0days of my memory’s finest.\u00a0\u00a0 Back when I had that car, the early 1970’s, the highway from Austin to Houston (where my folks lived) was flat and\u00a0rarely traveled, unlike today where the population has exploded along with this idyllic dream of an empty road and a car that could easily do 100 miles an hour in fourth gear with an easy grace.\u00a0\u00a0But as it had rear wheeled drive, with that disproportionate weight of the engine up front, it was a true hazard to drive in ice and snow in the high country for sure.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 My former husband and some friends and I were heading for Santa Fe from Austin, Texas\u00a0one winter back then,\u00a0 for some unknown reason (the early 1970’s did little for most of my generation’s long term memory, as is shown here)in my beloved “Stang”.\u00a0 By the time we got to\u00a0north Texas (say 800 miles away from Austin)\u00a0it started snowing, which we Austinites took to be a bonus indeed.\u00a0 I remember dancing in the falling white wonder of snow in front of some little road stop restaurant, sort of like I was the\u00a0sugar plum\u00a0fairy’s evil twin from the “Nutcracker Ballet”. Yes, that was unusual behavior, but not for me in those days.\u00a0 Everything seemed all\u00a0gloriously white and\u00a0unnaturally glossy with it’s\u00a0coat of ice and carpet of snow.\u00a0The cold icy scenery was so very wonderfully different for us, as we marveled at\u00a0the snow storm\u00a0on the flat highway there in North Texas\u00a0that day.\u00a0Even the strange\u00a0scrunching sounds we made\u00a0as we walked and the feeling of the snow falling on our upturned faces was ever so exotic\u00a0to us Central Texans and\u00a0made\u00a0the day seem completely magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Until we got into that serious\u00a0High Mountain Country in New Mexico.\u00a0 By this time, we were inside of a blizzard,\u00a0with some of the roads\u00a0so iced over or packed with a questionable amount of snow, that the big trucks where parked along side ‘the truck-stops for the duration-showing a professional experienced reaction to the\u00a0weather’s reality.\u00a0\u00a0Trying to haul an 18 wheeler up and down those enormous monta\u00f1as in those conditions, wasn’t gonna happen with out major destruction.\u00a0 But we kept\u00a0seeing other regular cars bravely hauling as if there was no problem at hand. \u00a0At some\u00a0sections of this\u00a0horrendous highway, there\u00a0were New Mexico’s Finest at several locations with blinking lights flashing, so we slowed down and were told we could probably make it through since we had big traction\u00a0tires\u00a0on that “Stang”… the trooper must have thought we looked like we were “experienced snow drivers”, or heres a bunch to prove Darwins theory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Needless to say, we weren’t all THAT experienced with driving that dang “Stang” up and over those humongous icy mountains, in which\u00a0our front end was so heavy and the back end (you know where the wheels were going on) was so light in the loafers, it was\u00a0sort of like being on a long sled with a couple of other squirming kids in back of a big fat kid in the\u00a0front — hauling sideways and out of control. If and when we made it upside of one of those big mountains, we then had to contend with sliding on down in that manner, free falling, sometimes sideways.\u00a0 At one\u00a0section of the highway, the troopers at a rest stop were giving instructions and advice that was so unbelievably frightening\u00a0 and confusing to me, that\u00a0I did not notice my now ex-husband\u00a0had gone\u00a0to get\u00a0coffee and wasn’t with us, as my mind was fearfully concentrating on the “how to’s”as I was at that time doing the driving. The highway beyond continued to\u00a0glisten with ice and snow in the night’s strange light\u00a0(the highway\u00a0at that point was down to\u00a0one travel-able lane) with\u00a0several heavily dressed cops stationed at intervals, attired with the frigid weather in mind, with walky-talkys\u00a0and thick white gloves, signaling\u00a0traffic in an authoritative style, so\u00a0there would be no unfortunate head-on\/slide-into collisions. At that point, I locked eyes with the trooper in charge who was motioning for me to head forward-which I did, staying in 2nd gear most of the time and holding my breath or\u00a0nervously laughing, ’cause what else could you do when you were fixing to die?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0As\u00a0I bravely continued my perilous journey, suddenly from behind me in the white thick mist of the blizzard I noticed the flashing lights of a cop car in the dim mist of\u00a0 the heavy snow,\u00a0as we both\u00a0attempted to hit the bottom of one of those sleigh rides and haul over to the side at the bottom.\u00a0Out of the dim white mist I noticed a couple of guys getting out of that\u00a0 police car and heading my way. The snow was coming down so thickly, you could barely make out who or what they were.\u00a0 But, as they came closer up to my drivers side window, I saw them to be:\u00a0one very highly amused trooper, along with my terrified, semi-frozen husband who was dressed for Winter in Central Texas, not for a Blizzard.\u00a0\u00a0 Which just goes to show, who needs him?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We got to Santa Fe, where I stayed with a good friend of mine, while husband #1 continued to drive to California and pick up his blankidy-blanking\u00a0fiber-glassed hull of the sail boat he was building, intending to sail the ocean all by\u00a0himself, which was always his plan.\u00a0There was a real clue with that divisional\u00a0life goal, but I missed it until later. \u00a0I stayed a few days in Santa Fe\u00a0experiencing Winter for nearly a week, then caught a ride back to Austin\u00a0with another\u00a0fine friend of mine with a\u00a04 wheel drive truck. I got back to Austin, more or less no worse for wear, which could not\u00a0be said for the state of my Mustang. That was a Hell of a car any way you look at it and I wish I still had it in A-! condition, but wasn’t meant for hauling sailboats ‘cross country.\u00a0 Never had such a fine car been so misused and abused as that one: if it’d been a horse, I’d a had to shoot him.\u00a0 So here I sit typing this tale of reckless frolicking in a snow storm, on second thought, looking forward to\u00a0this year’s Gray Slop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So happy October, yawl’s; it’s\u00a0probably only gonna hit 92 to the south of our house, overlooking the Rio Grande way down in the valley, beyond which a gaggle of golfers continue their evil game.<\/p>\n
As ever,<\/p>\n
Kay Buena
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though I can close my eyes and remember how Fall\u00a0looked and seemed to me\u00a0in New England, and other foreign spots north of the Rio Grande, here in Austin, Fall looks pretty much like Summer, but with the school-aged kids rounded up like they’re supposed to be, unseen nor heard,\u00a0for the better part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R4qt-l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/betty-jane-gets-a-make-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":0},"title":"3. Betty Jane gets a Make-Over","author":"Kay Buena","date":"January 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Betty Jane (Notorious music critic, companion, and\u00a0 a 58 year old doll, with a proclivity for mischief,\u00a0 mayhem, and mystery) first came into my life , she was almost too pretty to be taken seriously.\u00a0 Oddly enough,\u00a0though -- as it is for us all, her beauty was really internal,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "(The) Betty Jane Chronicles"","block_context":{"text":"(The) Betty Jane Chronicles","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/the-betty-jane-chronicles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/here-in-geezerville-we-revert-to-subversion\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":1},"title":"Here in Geezerville, we revert to subversion","author":"Kay Buena","date":"January 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There it was, coming up on Christmas at the Sauerosa, here in Austin,Texas. However, there were certain complications having to do with age and the price of beans, who has fleas or has flown,\u00a0and who cares?\u00a0 All expectations from different generations revise the\u00a0inner eye's\u00a0implications that that's all there is to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/life-in-the-past-lane\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":2},"title":"Life in the Past lane","author":"Kay Buena","date":"August 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I get older, as we all do, I find some of the situations which used to really embarrass me don't even phase me anymore.\u00a0 I am not sure if it's because I am beyond being shocked,\u00a0 or watch too much TV, or not enough---or if I'm just getting\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-mystical-mystery-of-the-peacock-a-memory\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":3},"title":"The Mystical Mystery of the Peacock (a memory)","author":"Kay Buena","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Mystical Mystery of our Peacock & Where did it go? Click on song of the day: Morning Dove\u00a0lyrics are here \u00a0 My husband and I have lived in this house overlooking a visually dramatic valley in North\/Central Austin for nearly 16 years.\u00a0 But, before things became quite so static\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth"","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/pianos-i-have-known-and-loved\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":4},"title":"Piano's I Have Known and Loved","author":"Kay Buena","date":"September 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometime between the age of 2 and 4 years old, my parents got me a toy piano.\u00a0 It was white and shaped like a baby grand, but only had two octaves (from\u00a0 G below middle C---to G above middle C).\u00a0 I thought this was the most wonderful thing, although thinking\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/grey-hazey-summer-days-grey-hazey-dummer-ways\/","url_meta":{"origin":21,"position":5},"title":"Grey Hazey Summer Days, Grey Hazey Dummer Ways","author":"Kay Buena","date":"August 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are times when even the most selfishly lonely of us become all and out bummed by long tedious hot and mostly rainy days like today in Austin, Texas--as anywhere, there is the\u00a0 short termed joy of the unlikely good of each day.\u00a0 And then, there is the look-into-it-a-little-closer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}