Snow, the dogs and memories

Well, it’s the first snow of the season, at least for me and the dogs. Kansas City had some snow over the holidays when were out of town (Pat is again out of town, missing this); we saw the remains of it on the north sides of buildings and walls. But this is fresh snow to wake up to; not too much, only an inch or two, but enough to carpet all the streets and sidewalks and bushes and grass, and to make it necessary to put on boots for our walk (for me, not the dogs). Also warm clothes, because it is also about 8 degrees, which we consider chilly in these parts. Temperatures have been up and down, a combination of climate change and the fact that KC sits smack in the middle of several weather systems; last weekend it was even colder (4 with a wind chill of -13 on Sunday) but it was dry; by Thursday we had a sunny 62! Last night we were outside on a clear 30 degree night, and I told Becky on the phone how that was quite pleasant – didn’t really even need gloves. Not this morning, though.

The snow was pretty virginal, and so Fry, Maggie and I were the first ones to walk in it out of our building and down the street, although a couple of folks had cleaned paths from their front yards to the curb. Almost no one shovels their sidewalks, but a couple of people with snowblowers like to get them out. The real problem walking dogs in snow is when there is a lot of it, and most people haven’t cleared their sidewalks so you walk in the street, but the plows have piled the snow up by the curbs making it difficult to get out of the way if cars come careening toward you, which happens too often. But not a problem today.

It was also Maggie’s first snow-walk with us, although at 5 years old I’m sure she has seen it; we just adopted her after Thanksgiving, to try to fill some of the hole left by Yonkel’s passing last spring. At first, and indeed second, glance she looks a lot like Fry, but in reality she is much stockier and stronger, a combination of golden Lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback, to Fry’s golden retriever and beagle. She has no ridge on her back, but is a fast powerful runner like that breed. She also pulls a lot walking, but the Halti collar helps. On the other hand, while she has been known to bolt from the car and run like a crazy dog for laps around the park, she is too bulky to get under the fences in the backyard, and is not driven by Fry’s beagle-like commitment to trying, so I can let her out to run in the yard, while keeping Fry on the retractable leash.

My friend Barry, the inveterate outdoorsman, says (probably quoting someone else) that there is no such thing as “too cold”, just “insufficient gear”. Maybe, but sufficient gear can be bulky and restrict movements a bit. Not quite like the little brother in “Christmas Story” or those depicted in cartoons who are so bundled up they cannot move, or wearing what the now-disgraced Bill Cosby called “idiot mittens”, connected by an elastic band that ran from one to another across your shoulders under your coat (so called because ostensibly if someone pulled one, the other smacked you in your face; I saw but never actually wore these!). But enough so you don’t move as easily, and frankly taking the gloves off to pick up after the dog can not only be cold, but occasionally messy.

This is, of course, why one of the woolen gloves I usually wear is sitting on a towel on the window sill drying slowly, after being washed out. I hope it dries before it freezes. Obviously, the best way to dry it is on the radiator, but
this requires having radiators, and only one house that I have lived in since being an adult had them, and it is not this one. Putting it on top of a forced-air vent would work if they were on the floor, but in this place they are all in the ceiling. From a physics point of view that makes sense for the AC (cold air descends) but less for heat. Having them on the floor can be inconvenient, as small things roll into them, I remember from the house where I had them, especially when there are small children, but there are also compensating advantages. I have very “warm” memories of finding my son Matt downstairs on cold Chicago morning, in his pajamas sitting on such a vent! (Somewhere there is a picture of this, but I can’t find it, so I’ll just use one of the two boys crawling around on the floor there.)

So there it is; we’re back in the house, it’s sunny outside, the dogs are basking in it on the couch, I have brushed the snow off the cars (nice part about very cold; easy to brush off),  I’ll eat breakfast, and maybe soon we’ll have a fire.

Ah.