The Howdygram 2: East Texas is drowning in lots of weather.

Hello … and happy Friday morning from the Lone Star State! I don’t know why I’m so damn cheerful, to tell y’all the truth, because the eastern third of Texas is being pounded to death by TROPICAL DEPRESSION IMELDA. Houston, and areas to the east of Houston, are floating away under 55 inches of rain during the last 36 hours … and there’s more on the way.

Thunderstorms and rain from Imelda will begin around 9 a.m. today here in the Dallas metro area. Please be assured that Howdygram headquarters is NOT expecting anything remotely like the devastation going on south of us. (And anyway, we’re on top of a hill.)

In case you haven’t paid any attention to images in the news, here’s what it looks like in Houston right now. All of southeastern Texas is PARALYZED, and the National Weather service is already referring to this as “an incredibly dangerous, life-threatening situation.”

“Roughly three feet of rain has engulfed this vast, highly populated area since Wednesday morning,” the Washington Post reported, and declared this “one of the worst fresh-water floods in American history.” Imelda has been labeled a “one-in-1,000-year rainfall event, only two years after Hurricane Harvey’s one-in-1,000-year rainfall event in the exact same location. Imelda is now among the top five wettest tropical storm systems ever to strike the contiguous 48 states. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, schmuck extraordinaire, has declared a state of emergency in 14 counties.

In case you’re not a geography genius, here’s a pleasant topical map of Texas that denotes: A) Howdygram headquarters and the Dallas metro area; and B) Houston, which is presently swimming for its life. Houston is about 25 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico (actually, Galveston Bay) and 245 miles south of Dallas. If you zoom in on the map for a closer look at Dallas, I’m the cute old lady waving from her hospital bed. (Wave back and you might win a cup of applesauce.)

I’ve got a few more juicy free fonts for you this morning. All of them are highly useful display fonts, but I think my favorites are “Zanzibar,” which has some of the most elegant letterforms I’ve ever seen, and “The Ampersand Story.” Every typographer — including yours truly — needs all the snazzy ampersands she can get her mitts on. I’ve been collecting them for years and firmly believe that a person can never have too many ampersands.

Two more items of note before I wrap up this section. First, “Cactus Flower” and “Tomatoes” bear a new tag — a V in a solid red square — indicating that they include free vector illustrations. (You’ll need appropriate software like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign to access vector graphics.) And second, “Gunnar” and “Brickton” are both in the same download file. “Gunnar” includes eight interesting styles and “Brickton” is a cool layering font with 10 different options. Woo-hoo!

Download links will appear under the graphic. You’re welcome.

Zanzibar • Marvin • Cactus Flower • The Ampersand Story
Tomatoes • Almanak • Gunnar & Brickton

It’s 5 a.m. Saturday morning and I just made out a shopping list for Sam, who’s planning to swing by Wal-Mart later this morning after his walk in the woods. The list today is definitely short but sweet:

Campbell’s Tomato Soup (8 cans)
Whole Milk (gallon)
Annie Chun’s White Sticky Rice
Chicken Bone Broth (quart)
Elmer’s Glue
Bob Evans Mashed Potatoes
Diet A&W Root Beer (six-pack of 20-oz. bottles)
Diet Sunkist Orange Soda (six-pack of 20-oz. bottles)

Dear readers, I’ve got a TOMATO SOUP ADDICTION. Please allow me to explain. There are practically zero solid foods that I can eat any more due to digestive and swallowing difficulties, not counting: 1) a small amount of mashed potatoes; 2) an occasional can of Ro-Tel spicy canned tomatoes; 3) applesauce; and 4) small curd cottage cheese. That’s it. Sam makes my tomato soup with milk so I’ll get some vitamins and actual nutrition from it, and there are days that I have two cans for lunch and two more for dinner. Seriously! And tomato soup is even easy to eat reclining in bed because it’s thick and fluffy and doesn’t drip off my spoon. Oy. Is this another pathetic hoo-hah from the life of a bedridden senior citizen, or what?

I think I need a nap now, and maybe some tomato soup when I wake up! Thank you for reading this and please tell your friends.