Why it’s a colder place here now

Molly Ivins has died. If that link has expired, you can read the story here. UPDATE: The Texas Observer has a rich lode of photos, tributes and information, and a kickass pic of Molly in her prime.

Damn. I’m going to miss her. And I never met her.

I was an adolescent in Houston in the 1960′s; she grew up there a few years ahead of me. In a few words about her experience as a kid in that place and time, she illuminated my own experience. I may be paraphrasing, but I remember it as this: “When you realize that all this time they have been lying to you about race, you start to wonder what else they are lying about.”

Wherever she has gone, I hope she’s meeting the folks, having fun, and finding just enough foolishness to skewer but not enough to have to worry about too much.

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Our groundhog froze

It’s 5:30 a.m. MST. The TV news is showing some well-upholstered old white men in old-fashioned dark suits and top hats. One of them is holding a fat furry rodent with a bored look on its face, another is speaking long words into a microphone, and the rest are crowding around the other two so they can be on TV.

It’s Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania. I’ve never understood the rodent-seeing-its-shadow thing. But then we don’t really have groundhogs out here in the West. That I know of. We have prairie dogs, but they tend to be skinny and not to stand still long enough to cast much of a shadow.

Anyway, if we had a groundhog, he froze overnight.

NOAA says this about DEN within the past hour:

Minus 14, wind chill of MINUS THIRTY-SEVEN DEGREES FARENHEIT.

It’s a little warmer in the middle of Denver. But the TV is showing a few godawful traffic snarls, and it’s Friday and I’ve got to get to work this morning.

I’m glad for my warm house, warm clothes, warm car, warm office. And I think I’ll have another cup of nice hot coffee before I take my warm shower.

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