Its cold outside today.

Its finally raining! This weekend we've had spitty drizzle and this morning it was frozen on the roads. There is much rejoicing! ('Cause of the moisture, not the ice.) However, even though there is but the tiniest bit of ice, and zero snow, we tend to freak out just a bit. (My northern and Midwestern readers would blush for us if they knew how badly we drive when its slippery.) And what better reason to skip your probation appointment, than bad weather? The ONLY person who has made it in to report today lives 45 miles away and was only 15 minutes late for his 8:30 a.m. appointment. And can I also mention that the ice melted by 9:00 a.m.?

So, I have a little time on my hands and I managed to download some photos off my phone. I had this big post planned about them, when I took them, but now I've forgotten most of it. A couple of weeks ago, Mindy, M2 and I decided to make an expedition upstairs. Our reason, ostensibly, was to search for the Christmas tree of old. We used to put up a tree every year in the office, but the tree and decorations got so old as to be embarrassing and we quit doing it. Its been long enough that the tree has phased from old and ugly into nostalgically kitsch-y, so we went to find the tree.


I believe I've mentioned before that my office is located on the bottom floor of an old four story hotel. Fake Cow City is home to the third hotel ever built by Conrad Hilton hisownself. This is not that building. That building is being slowly demolished by alternating encounters with weather and juvenile arsonists. Nope, this ain't the Hilton, but its just as old. This is the Ware Hotel. The upper three floors are largely abandoned. The county uses them for storage and it is a major pigeon and vermin sanctuary.



Each county office has several rooms devoted to storing old records and things like Christmas trees. As you walk down the halls the room doors are labeled in Sharpie, right on the wood: DA's office - files to 1994, Probation Dead Files 1987-1996, Auditor's office, Treasurer - budget reports 1997 - , and so on. I love to explore up there and every couple of years we make up an excuse to acquire a key so we can spend an a few of hours traipsing through bird crap, looking for treasures.

This is on the third floor. I don't know why the exit sign is here. The only exit I could find from here is if you go through the door on the right, break out the windows in the balcony of the honeymoon suite and plummet down to the sidewalk below.

How do you like my ghostly shadow? It makes me feel a bit hollow.

I think I can wrangle a key from one of the more malleable gate-keepers in the near future. I may take a few hours off from work and go exploring with a better camera...