How Cold Is It??

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I haven’t felt like doing too much lately and I blame it all on the cold temperatures. Usually the cold doesn’t bother me all that much, but this year I find myself wishing that Spring would hurry up and get here.  How cold is it, you might ask, which has me racking my head for a great How cold is it? joke.  The best I can come up with is…it is so cold that the other day when I bent over, John asked me if I knew I had two long, pointy icicles hanging from my body.  Of course, if this had really happened, I would have informed him that he knew darn well those were my boobs and I would have made some retaliatory comment about men with tiny test-icicles.  It’s how we roll in this family.

 

Putting all bad jokes aside, it is cold.  The other day I went out to try and get some bird pictures.  I had high hopes to capture mind-blowing photos of two woodpeckers dining out, until my two assistants placed themselves directly under the bird feeders and then simultaneously decided to relieve themselves in the same area. 

Nobody likes to dine in a bathroom, so I gave up and went inside to get warm.  I tried it again later and this time, my two assistants decided to play WWE all around the tree that houses the bird feeders, until I decided to corral them and place them in another area of our yard away from all the bird action.  By the time I had gotten Fudge and Vern under control, I swear the temperature had dropped another 20 degrees and my fingers were too numb to focus my camera.  Most of the pictures were blurry and had to be deleted and my two helpers did not seem to care that I placed the majority of the blame on them.   I know this, because when I turned to tell them I had about had it with them and I was thinking about selling them on Craigslist for $1.00 each (never offer a dog for free on Craigslist), they were playing their own version of King of the Mountain on the hot tub.  Considering I don’t even like taking bird photos, it seemed like a whole lot of aggravation for nothing.

If it wasn’t for Vern, who is part Polar Bear, Fudge and I would be content to stay in the house and wait the winter out. I keep telling myself that he is now five and at some point is going to be content with lounging around the house, watching me do the things I want to do, but so far, we have not reached that point.  Instead, I go out every day and walk him or pay later and frankly, my feet and ankles are tired of walking on unplowed roads, snow and ice, and uneven pavements.  The other day we took them to the park after it had snowed all day the day before only to find that the road leading into the park had not been plowed yet.  So, we made our way over to a nearby church parking lot and traipsed through a field to get into the park.  The only problem was I wore ankle high boots and the snow was more like lower leg high, which meant the further we walked, the more snow I accumulated in my boots. John is always telling me to wear better boots, so I hesitated to tell him if we stayed out much longer there was a chance he was going to have to make an improvised stretcher from fallen logs and drag me out of the woods.  By the time we got home, I had taken off my boots and was running the car heater at full force to thaw out my feet.  Naturally, when we got home, I assumed John would help me into the house or at least run into the house and get me a pair of slippers for the trek from the car to the house, but I was wrong.  No, sometime after he had opened and closed the gate over the driveway, he had decided that our snow covered trash cans needed his immediate attention and stated later he did not hear me calling for help. If I am ever in the position where my life flashes before my eyes, most of what I see will probably be John’s back end as he heads in the opposite direction from where he could be the most help.  Anyway, he seemed genuinely surprised when I expressed my outrage that a pair of trash cans took precedence over my wet and cold feet and just said that I should have said something. It seemed pointless to point out that I had tried, but he was nowhere to be found.

 

This week it seems I have reached the end of my rope. My friend said she couldn’t believe it when I told her I needed a vacation from my dogs. It’s not their fault that the weather is making it hard to walk them without fear of falling on the ice, but I feel like that commercial where the dad is sick and tells his kid he is going to need a sick day.  Even Megan who just moved to an area where it hardly ever snows had a snow day this week and got to stay home from work.  When I called her to commiserate and asked her if it would be weird if a middle-aged woman went to see Fifty Shades of Grey alone, she said yes, but what was even weirder was that I thought I was middle-aged.  Comments like that always bring me back to those school days when the kids would have a snow day and initially it would start off fun, but by the second day, I would be pointing my fist skyward and asking God why he hated me.  I have no problem going to a movie by myself, but I explained to Megan that I read that some woman in Mexico had been arrested for masturbating during the movie and I felt it made us lone movie goers suspect.  I also commented that the idiot woman was sitting in the 10^th row and I was going to go out on a limb and say this woman’s strongest suit was probably not discretion.  Well, I could hear Megan and Doc laughing and then Doc said, “Weren’t you just in Mexico?” and Megan added, “Doc, I told you that wasn’t my mom. She always sits in the back row.”  During the movie, she texted me and asked me if it had started yet and I typed back, “YES, OH YES, OH YES!” and that got me a LOL, You’re Weird, and Gross in response, so that made me happy.

 

The one good thing about the winter is my bed.  John bought me a mattress topper for Christmas and that combined with my heating blanket makes my bed the greatest place on earth.  Seriously, I could spend all winter there and I think Fudge feels the same. We just have that one problem that I have mentioned before…V-E-R-N….who seems to think staying warm is for sissies.

Without Vern in the picture, she and I would wait out this cold winter in bed.

Poor Fudge!

The only thing I might need is a gallon of body lotion to combat the effects this winter and our dry heat are having on my skin.  Seriously, I could hire myself out as sandpaper or be the understudy for the crocodile in some traveling production of Peter Pan.  That aside, Hayley is green with envy about our mattress topper and heating blanket and I am half afraid that I am going to wake up one night, like I used to do when she was little, and find her standing over me, telling me she had a bad dream and can she get in bed with us.  Hayley is always cold and will come upstairs some mornings looking like she just spent a night in Siberia. Even when I am running around in a T-shirt, she is still cold and I always tell her I know where she could find a warm place to stay….her own apartment…and now she can pretty much finish my thought whenever she starts to say, “I am so cold.” The other day, she commented that she wondered if Lizzie Borden’s parents had a mattress topper and a heating blanket, although it was hard to understand her, because her teeth were chattering, but I clearly made out the words selfish parents and ax.  I told John the other night I may just start sleeping naked for added assurance that no one comes into our room at night and later I heard him tell Hayley there may be a vacancy soon in our room.

 

Once again, I went off point a bit, but my real point is that it is cold and everyone here, except Vern, is so over it.  Thanks for letting me complain. It helped a little. 

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Janie, LOL...I went all by myself. It was all older women and one man. I was the youngster in the crowd. One lady wore a Santa hat :) 

Karen, You have it worse than us, but I still am so over it. LOL I swear my next dog is gonna fit in my purse and hate the cold.

Carol, Thank you. My sister just spent a month in Florida. Now she wants to move down there. I really would miss the seasons, but I would like winter to be shorter. LOL

Shoney and Ruby, Thank you! I am glad my writing helped you out. I would be happy with one snowfall a year and that would be that :)

F, Thank you! Maybe we should just change houses. You spend time with my dogs and family and I spend time at your house :) You and John could watch PBS together. LOL

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

You and the Fifty Shades, OMD I literally laughed out loud. Well I've been shoveling the backyard all morning and it feels good outside for once! At 38 degrees out and working up some heat from shoveling, it could be shorts weather! I'm with you, so ready for Spring!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

LOL!  I too have been suffering from the sore ankles and feet (along with fear of breaking a hip) from my daily trek over the treacherous icy terrain with my own part-polar-bear doodle. Thanks for helping me find something about this rotten, miserable winter to laugh at! 

[Carol and Banjo]

Loved this Laurie.....and LOVE your pics!!!!     It's even cold in (un)sunny Florida!     I check the temps daily back at home and think it's time to move.    As I get older I'm just not that into winter.    The extreme cold temps are just TOO much!     Banjo loves it where ever we are, no matter the conditions.

[Shoney & Ruby]

Oh Thank you for making laugh and wince and smile. Your photos are beautiful. Your complaint is legitimate. I do think some of our doodles are oblivious to cold [even 4 month old Ruby who complains when we don't want to take her out in a blizzard to play]. I have been spending a lot of time online looking at my old home in California wondering why I left and how I can go back--and we haven't had nearly the cold you have had. But after 3 feet of snow in one week it gets tiresome, no matter how beautiful.  Writing must help with those winter blues? Your writing helped me with mine!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Test-icicles is a classic! Great blog. I need a vacation from winter, the dogs and myself by now :)