The Polar Vortex!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

This Polar Vortex thing is starting to tick me off.  I don’t really understand it all, but I tend to base my opinions on how something affects my little world and me and so far, I am not happy.  I take after my mom in this regard.  Indiana could be experiencing the worst drought in history and Hoosiers could be lining up with buckets for water at rationing stations and all she would say if it started to rain was, “I have the worst luck.  Why does it always rain when I am going to get my hair done?”  This winter has been like going out for dinner with my husband…where do you want to go?....I don’t care….what sounds good?....I don’t know. Make up your mind already! Is it winter? Is it Spring?  Is it cold? Is it warm?  All I know is, with all these weird weather patterns, my yard is now a muddy mess and that translates to muddy paws and muddy floors.  Within a 24-hour time span I have been outside walking the dogs with my full on Eskimo ensemble and later stripping off the layers and complaining about how hot I am on our next walk. 

 

The Friday I scheduled the dog’s grooming appointment for, I woke up to freezing rain.  My groomer has an exceptionally long gravel driveway that goes downhill in a windy sort of fashion. If I survived the trip down, my van would never get back up that hill in bad weather.  When your cream colored dog is brown, on the grooming meter that corresponds to desperation.  I knew Friday was a bust, but I asked my groomer if she could reschedule them for Saturday and wisely ignored part of her text back that said she could do it and she hoped they were not in too bad of shape. 

What exactly did she mean by too bad of shape?

Let’s just say I confirmed the appointment and decided that by the time she determined what shape they were in, I could hopefully be back up that driveway.  The normal drive down her driveway is like one of those zoo Safari rides.  Folks, off to your left are goats….look right to see guinea hens and roosters….just up ahead is a goat protecting dog…over there we have a couple of horses and if we get lucky, we may see the resident llama….close call there, folks, we almost hit a cat.  In other words, on a good day, the trip down the driveway could be hell with my boisterous passengers, BUT they are usually on their best behavior hoping they will be rewarded at the end of the driveway with me doing a U-turn and forgetting to drop them off.  After the grooming, and on the way back up the driveway, they make sure to double their efforts and make up for their lack of barking on the way down.

 

Well, on Saturday, the temperature was in the 40’s, so I assumed my van would have no problem and continued feeling that false sense of hope right up until the time I turned into the driveway and skidded into the grass and ended up facing in the opposite direction.  I have never been good at admitting defeat so I called John and asked him to come get the dogs and take them the rest of the way down the driveway and I let him know I would be in the van at the top of the driveway spinning my tires and raising my fists skyward.  Luckily, before John got there I had excavated myself by backing across the icy driveway and then going straight up the groomer’s grassy slope.  I figured it was my van or her grass and I really like my van. When John arrived, we transferred the grooming candidates and I hopped in for our swift ride down the long driveway.  Unfortunately, things did not go as planned and John’s car slipped on the ice at the top of the drive and he declined to go any further.  John is a thoughtful planner and I am far more impulsive and despite my cries of “just go and we will figure out later how to get back up,” he opted to get out of the car and take a look down the rest of the driveway and then declared it impassable.  That left us with Plan B…someone had to walk two reactive dogs down that sporadically icy driveway, past the zoo, and pray they survived. 

Where you guys going?

As luck would have it, John and I did not have to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” for the honors because it was at that precise point that the neighbor, who shares a driveway with my groomer, decided she was getting up that driveway come hell or high water and a little thing like John’s car in her path was not going to stop her.  I told John to go deal with his car before the woman pushed it along with her vehicle and I opted to take the dogs down. It seemed as if timing and fate had chosen our roles for us and then misfortune showed up to throw in a final twist and the heavens opened up and it began to pour.

 

A lesser woman would have quit at this point and called it a day, but I kept walking.  We went past the goats and the goat-protecting dog and I can only surmise that the dogs were in such a state of disbelief that their grooming appointment was still on that they didn’t make a peep.  The rain didn’t scare me as badly as the thought of those damn guinea hens making an appearance.  I hate those hens, because every time I go down or up that driveway they walk directly in front of my car and by walk, I mean saunter. It is like they think their role is to escort every customer to the shop’s door and make sure everyone is obeying some kind of very slow speed limit.  “Confused as a bunch of guinea hens” should be a catch phrase on everyone’s tongue and used as the ultimate insult when encountering dumb people.  I actually looked up what a bunch of hens would be called and believe it or not the correct answer is "A confusion of guinea fowl," and I can honestly say if you ever had a bunch of these nitwits walking in front of your car, you would know why. They bob and weave and go in exactly the direction that makes no sense if they want to continue to live and not get run over by a large, blue van.  It is the same dazed, dumb, and confused look I see in the eyes of some customer in the Dollar store who goes up to the register with a miscellaneous item in hand and asks the clerk, “How much is this?”  From here on out, I am going to assume one of their ancestors did something unspeakable with a guinea hen and their DNA reads fowl.  

I believe his great, great, great, great grandmother was a guinea hen!

By this point, I had also decided that if those hens showed up and taunted my dogs down the driveway, I really did not care if we walked into the grooming shop soaking wet and each dog had a guinea hen in his or her mouth.  I was just going to say, “Isn’t this weather fowl?” and proceed to tell her how I wanted the dogs groomed as if nothing was amiss.

 

Finally, luck made an appearance that day, and the hens stayed out of sight and we all arrived in one piece, albeit slightly wet.  The groomer said she would be happy to groom me, too, but I left the dogs and opted to ride up the driveway with her husband in a huge truck and meet John up at the top.  What does all this have to do with Polar Vortex?  Who knows, except one day it is freezing and cold and the next day it is warmer and fools you into thinking you can make it down an extra long driveway.  When it starts affecting my dog’s grooming appointments and makes me look like a drowned rat, then we got trouble. Big trouble!!

[Annie Oak]

OMG, what an amazing story....I do hope the dogs stay clean enough for the next couple of weeks!! Here in California we have had no rain or snow all winter. . . Its drought time for us..again...Its hard :) to cope with 65-70 in the day time and high 30's at night....My bulb are coming up and its still only January!

[Miss Ellie]

My birthday has been a really special wonderful day thanks to family & friends...but made even more special that I had the pleasure of being blessed with uncontrollable laughter created by yet another beloved Laurie blog...thanks for making a perfect day even brighter:)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Love sharing your pain. After I arrived inside after about 15 minutes outside yesterday and minor frostbite, or so it seemed, the furthest I have gotten was down the driveway to pick up the paper today. I thought about going out to snap a photo of the house in the dark last night for the PG but I rapidly decided nothing was going to get me out in the dark, cold, windy, snowy, well, you get the idea. Tomorrow I may actually have to go somewhere and I am balking despite cabin fever. Things are so bad I am planning to cook a Julia Child recipe tonight in honor of you second mother. maybe you inspired me with mini pies : )Maybe guinea fowl taste good? Bon appetit!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

OMD I'm getting visions of Murph in the car driving through the zoo.....that would be very, very ugly.  With each of your blogs I am more and more impressed with your powers of persuasion with John.  I can't imagine calling Dave and telling him I needed him to come get the dogs and drive them down the rest of the way through the zoo.  Well I can imagine...he would not be a happy camper, actually I probably wouldn't get through because I'm convinced he'd be screening out my calls.  Every day is an adventure for you, Laurie.  I'm so glad you share these escapades with us....I still say you need a reality show.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

OMD! All I can say is, either your groomer is extraordinarily charismatic or she is the only dog groomer within 100 miles of your home, because there is nothing that would make me go through all that, and that would include the groomer paying me. 

LOLOL to "one of their ancestors did something unspeakable with a guinea hen" and that whole part about fowls and confusions. Thank you for giving me a suspenseful read and a good laugh on a cold miserable day!

 

[Brittney & Cally]

Laurie, you live quite the adventurous and interesting life. Another great blog to keep me going through this freezing cold hump day! Hopefully the dogs turned out  wonderful after all that effort.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

This is so funny, except for the fact that I think it must be true as you just couldn't make that up. LOL Do we have an after picture? I kind of like the idea of a groomer with a long winding road and a zoo on the way to the parlor :)