Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Here’s looking at you, kid!

 

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NO, I’m not out climbing Everest.  In this photo I’ve been sitting outside for about ten minutes while owner shovels the driveway and curly-haired figures out how to fit the new vehicle into our  garage.  We are by nature a very organised family but we have some nice but older  furniture we want to sell and it is taking up parking space.  Anyway, here I am completely snow covered and feeling quite adventurous looking. Edmund Hilary dog is my thought!   As far as I know there are no raccoons in my family tree but my geneology is a bit shady.   Sad to say but I am just another mutt bastard. Don’t be upset,  I’ve had counselling and I’m doing well now.

The weather around town has been wild and crazy every day.  You wake up and you have no idea what you are going to get.  But if you are stupid and leave your car in a store parking lot over night, be prepared. When it snows no one has time for niceties.  The sign says parking is only for a couple hours so buddy…move the vehicle. We got a huge snowstorm and look at what this owner met up with upon returning to his car.  Maybe he can’t read?

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  It was  his own fault but you can’t help but feel just a bit sorry for him, can you? The problem was that the weather forecast said a storm was coming for almost 24 hours before it arrived.   This particular storm snuck up on us in the  dead of night.  As you all know  snow is capable of arriving quietly with little fanfare.  It falls sneakily and  persistently all night long and then you wake up to a completely new vistas.  We find it all a great adventure. However, snowfall is also exhausting as there is a lot of shovelling that goes along with the excitement of a new world order. 

You can’t tell but my thoughts are quite uncharitable in this photo.   The snow has arrived and I have just stepped outdoors for my first view of life.  The snow is very deep and I’m supposed to be excited  to wander P1030672 over to Clarke’s to get curly-haired a coffee. Sometimes I think they just haven’t taken the time to get to know the real me and we’ve been together nine years now.  I really just wanted to lie in front of the fake little hearth we have heating up the condo.   In fact it was just after this that I bounded into a snowbank to deal with some business I had to take care of and the snowbank enveloped me up to my nose. It was a complete and utter shock to my system.  Snuffling and snorting for dear life, I crawled out and then submitted to being tied up like a horse to a picnic bench outside the store. .  No one   put  any warm milk in my dog food that morning to reward me for the coffee run. It’s always about THEM and THEIR creature comforts?  Who’s the creature in this picture….MOI guys, MOI. 

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People are so different.  I don’t know if where they were born is a factor but one guy is out shovelling in his shirt sleeves and the other is covered from head to toe as he blasts our snow away with a snow blower. Gotta love that plume, eh? It’s our job to keep our sidewalks clear and for the most part our neighbourhood does a pretty good job. Every once in a while you hear someone complaining about somebody not pulling their weight but it is pretty rare.  Owner is a bit odd because she doesn’t  actually complain about snow shovelling; it is in her history and she just regards it as a good reason to eat some chocolates when she comes inside.  To everything there is a season….and snow shovelling apparently equates with chocolate eating season. As for me, I sit outside patiently as she does her thing.  Boris used to chase the snow as she tossed it up on to the ever growing snowbanks.  I am much too dignified; I supervise.

What happP1030782ened next was bone chilling!  The temperature dropped as low as we remember.  One day it was snowing tons of snow every hour and the next we were freezing our tails off.  We got up and headed outside for a nice little walk and I made it one house….ONE HOUSE people!  Although I mentioned my hobbling last posting, I wanted to show you a photo of a big steam plume from the buildings nearby.

Living in Telluride we have very clear air. Everything is so beautifully visible, achingly so (unless a forest fire is burning somewhere.) The cold seems to accentuate that clarity even more.  Very cold days are great days for taking pictures except you are so excited and want to take so many photos that humans forget that they quickly  suffer from frozen finger syndrome.  I tried to warn her but she wouldn’t pay me any attention.  The pictures were taken and instantly we went back inside to warm up.

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And then the next blizzard arrived.   This is all fantastic for the skiers and the mountain.  Snow is Telluride’s  livelihood.  As I’ve told you, when it snows in this town people get excited.  People pray for snow…and I’m not kidding! Well we got it in spades guys. Owner and curly-haired went cross country skiing on the valley floor (without me as the rules demand) and look what happened to her glasses when she took them off on the way home.  You don’t see this  in Texas. Fun times in Telluride town this weekend! Small things make them happy, what can I say.

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So now I’m inside warming up and waiting to be brusP1030832hed off. My jacket  sure came in handy today. Thanks guys. But, I must  say  owner is  getting on my nerves with all this picture taking.  Surely we have  enough photos of your truly by now. However, I’m her dog and she  loves me so I have to put up with it. Where are those three kids when I need them? And, yes , that tongue is at you owner!)

See ya later.

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