Red, White, and Black and Blue

Red - as in seeing it. My very bright William decided to participate in a stupid teen trick. And then compound that by "not mentioning it". Fortunately the mother of his cohorts called and clued us in on the shenanigans. So. William doesn't have a remote to his video game for an indefinite period of time. It would have been more appropriate to take away his car keys, only he doesn't have any car keys yet. So, you work with what you've got.

White (can't put the word white in white) - lots more of it. It just keeps coming out of the sky. We've got so much snow that we have HERDS of snowplows roaming the streets. We've got so much snow that they scooped up the snow on main street, loaded it into dump trucks, and hauled it off to fields on the edge of town. So much snow that the parking lots around town have snow piles around the light poles taller than the local pick-up trucks. So much snow that William, who usually thinks it can't snow soon enough, often enough, or deep enough, because snowboarding is second in his life only to football, mentioned today that he's looking forward to green grass. Although this evening we had this odd colorless precipitation falling out of the sky - I think it's called "rain". It's making a nice shiny surface on the extra six inches or so of snow we got earlier this morning.

(Postscript: Now that I've finished this post and I'm ready to push "publish", it's turned back to snow.)

Black and blue - my stupid dog got out of his kennel and went on a walkabout. Actually it wasn't that the dog was stupid, it was that the husband was.... forgetful. Didn't click the latch. So the dog, who is NOT stupid, pushed it open and took off. During one of the snowier afternoons I was out tracking him. Yes, tracking him. How hard can it be to track his big fuzzy prints in the snow? Wellllllll .... you remember those Family Circus cartoons with all the little tracks that take the kids all over the neighborhood? That's how dogs walk - not in a straight line, but in zig zags, circles, and backtracks. My neighbors were probably looking out their windows wondering what the f**k the crazy woman was doing climbing over retaining walls and through their front yards and twice around the pine tree on the corner. Then I lost him when he hit the hard pack on the main road.

So I just walked up and down the side streets and alleys calling for him, trying to see out between my hood and scarf for something big, fuzzy and loose. For an hour and a half I called and wandered. Crossing the hard pack on a sloped road, dodging a snow plow, I went down, tail over tea kettle. Thought I broke my wrist or hip. After that I was afraid to walk on anything smooth and I tromped another half hour through deep snow until I could barely lift my feet and trudged home tired and mad enough to give up the search. I worried all day and Buck came back late that night cheerful and tired from his adventures.

Yesterday, the next day after the fall, I woke up SO SORE I could barely move. My wrist was okay but the impact had made a mess of my shoulder and neck, and below that, my hip. I creaked about a bit and then gave it up and spent the evening on the couch reading. Today I'm still stiff and sore but considerably better so I don't think anything is broken.

And oh yeah, I think all that hollering I did for the dog might have been to no avail. I'm starting to suspect that he might be, not completely deaf maybe, but hard of hearing. I don't know if I've just not noticed the clues before this or if it's come on quickly but it's obvious he doesn't hear everything. I guess not a surprise since he's almost thirteen years old. That's really old for a big dog, right?

That's about it. To sum things up.... I'm working on eating up all that holiday chocolate. Still haven't brought the boxes in from the garage to put the holiday stuff away. Made spaghetti tonight for dinner. Dog is going deaf. Teen is videogame-less and sorta kinda grounded temporarily until hubby and I can discuss and decide what offical consequence will be laid upon him. Still feeling too stiff to be very useful. When I am useful, it's more likely to be the middle of the night than the middle of the day - I think I'm probably running on the same time zone as Hawaii. It's dark and windy and wet and white outside. The comedy channel is showing a stand up comedia-thon all night. A good night to make a pot of tea, laugh at the t.v., and browse the new art magazines I brought home from B & N a few weeks ago.