Saturday, January 7, 2017

Snow and our Doofus Dog

The view outside the window of my library was beautiful this morning. There was four inches of snow on the ground and it was still falling gracefully and unhurried and at seven in the morning, in stone cold silence. There was no wind. Each flake made its way to the ground at its own pace, in a hypnotic rhythm. At this hour no one on my street had stirred. The kids and the dogs hadn't yet disturbed the landscape. This is the part of snow that I love, the beauty and serenity it brings to the world. Everything stops for a day or so when it snows here. We aren't like people from places like Atlanta who lose their minds in the stuff. We get enough snow every year that we more or less keep our cool. But neither are we like people from Maine or Montana for whom a six inch snowfall wouldn't change a thing. In Virginia, we are still able to marvel at the beauty for a while.


Of course, like everything else in life, there's a down side. Removing all of this snow from drive ways and decks gets harder every year. Driving around in it tomorrow after it drops down to 3 degrees tonight will be a challenge, not for my car necessarily, but from the hazard of avoiding any encounter with those first time four-wheel drive morons who are under the false impression that their rugged all-terrain vehicles render them immune to accidents. I always take way too much pleasure from the sight of some 30 year old suburbanite with his Dodge Durango, ass over tea kettles in a ditch, back wheels spinning like a whirligig! Yes, I'm aware that this isn't a very Christian attitude, but nobody's perfect!

Probably the best and worst part of snow is having a Golden Retriever. Lucy, as you know, is our skittish girl, afraid of almost everything. Everything that is, except snow. I took her for a leash-free romp this morning and she had the time of her life, running, jumping, dancing and rolling around with abandon. Thirty minutes later, she was covered head to toe with what I can only describe as snow burrs, small balls of snow that have gotten tangled up in her fur in all the wrong places. Removing them is a laborious project that is never completely successful so after she goes inside, she leaves a trail of melted snow burrs all over the house. But, it really is worth it to watch the unrestrained glee with which she attacks her time in the snow. It's as if there is nothing in the whole wide world more thrilling than running at full speed in grand circles all over the yard, her enormous tongue wagging stupidly out of the side of her grinning mouth. What a doofus. What an adorable, heart warming fuzzball of a doofus dog we have!

Now, the house smells incredible because there's been a roast in the crockpot for several hours. It's some recipe that some woman posted on Pinterest a while back and it ended up making her a millionaire, or something. It's called the Mississippi Roast, I'm told. It's what's for dinner at the Dunnevant estate tonight. I'll be watching football and eating meat.

Feeling very masculine at the moment!

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