The only "snow" I've seen, so far.

Taken standing in line on the 4th floor of Pioneer Place, waiting to go to a free screening of "Valkyrie," the new Tom Cruise movie.

Looking down toward the 3rd floor where the two "snow" machines stood, spraying something out into the air which floated towards Santa's chair and tree, situated down on the floor below street level. We couldn't see Santa from where we stood, but we'd been down there earlier, on our way to the Food Court, and recognized the portion of the tree that we could see.

By the way, we in this case meant Leland and me. Also, by the way, when they wouldn't let us into the theater with my rolling black bag which held my Nikon D50 and my CoolPix, we left. I mean, I'm not about to leave my cameras inside the ticket booth while I watch a movie! No sirree buddy bobtail.

One more by the way, the weather persons on all three local national affiliates predict that we should have from one to three inches of real snow on the valley floor by some time tomorrow. We'll see. TriMet believes them--the entire fleet of buses is being "chained up" today and tonight, so they will run tomorrow, not necessarily on time, but frequently. "Chained up" or "chaining up" is local nomenclature for the process I've heretofore known as "putting chains on" the vehicle. What's even more astounding is that we are predicted to be below freezing, mostly in the 20s and teens for seven days in a row. Wow!

And another by the way, my aunt and them down in Puckett, Mississippi, got 6 inches of snow on Thursday! It was slush by Friday and a mess by Saturday.

The final by the way, inches and inches and inches of snow arrived on Mt. Hood, enough of it to open two lower trails or whatever you call them. Of course, the road up to the fun is one awful mess--folks are having to pull off at designated spots to "chain up." They can do it themselves, or use the services of a man we saw on the news who had "Private Chain Installer" on the back of his reflective safety vest. (At least I think I remember that correctly. Mama and I played The Beatles Monopoly for about six hours today, so I'm feeling a bit light-headed. And we're not even finished! Leland and Kailey gave me the game for my 61st birthday which was on Friday.)