Baby, It’s Cold Outside

This is what I kept telling my stubborn dog Koko on Wednesday when our high was around 1°F and it was snowing, with a slight breeze. He insisted, so I took him out with me while I shoveled the front walk. He lasted a whole 45 seconds—yes seconds! I looked up to check on his whereabouts before starting to shovel, and he was at the front door. Lucky dog; I had to spend the next 45 minutes shoveling the driveway and walks, but then I’m not a spoiled Chihuahua-terrierist mix. ( Kathy here: I think she means terrorist! OK maybe not.)

Sorry, but I don’t have any nice flower pictures to distract you from the dreck of this week’s post. Maybe with some warm weather next week, we might see a snowdrop or two!

With the weather being so awful, I need to do one of my workout DVDs:

This works best for me before coffee. Once I have a cup of joe, it’s hard to trick myself into jumping around and getting sweaty. The downside is that I’m pretty darn cranky without a shot of caffeine to start my heart. It’s kind of a no-win situation. Gotta say this is one smart chick!

We saw this and were instantly intrigued:

Looking at the floor tiles, it’s nearly three feet across and probably at least four and a half feet tall. We could tell that it wasn’t canvas, but some kind of thin, nylon-like fabric that fluttered in the breeze caused by someone walking by it. The design is really trying to look like a van Gogh, or maybe it’s a copy of a van Gogh painting which I don’t recognize, not being an art historian. Anyway, it certainly captured our attention and arrested our forward progress. I must say that this picture looks much better than what we were looking at in person.

Flipping the frame around, we saw this:

Not exactly what we were expecting. I don’t know why you would have this picture in such a large format, but I kind of like it in as a lesser version of a Charley Harper poster. I kind of think it would be wonderful in a kid’s room, or maybe somewhere I sat, relaxed, and contemplated my navel. The side with the nylon van Gogh is not quite as relaxing and actually makes my brow wrinkle while I look at it. Maybe it’s because it’s so big and dramatic. I really do like the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh; maybe we were turned off because the material looked like it should have been a giant muumuu/housedress.

I have looked at this picture longer that I want to admit, trying to figure out what these are:

I think that they are apples, horrifyingly enough. The right one might be dipped in caramel, but you can see that the left one is being peeled from the top and is much too happy about it! I think Mr. Caramel has been rolled in some crushed nuts and had a stick jammed into the top of his head—that might explain his expression. The absolute worst thing about either of them is the “wet” looking tongue on the green apple. What were they thinking? We should have brought Lord Ramses along with us because he would have knocked both of these abominations off the shelf, posthaste.

You would think that those must be the only two apples like that in the world, but you would be wrong:

This appeared last week, at least a week after the other two, and surely is related to the other two. I’m calling her Miss Apple Pie, and she appears to be all set up to serve and eat herself! WTF!!

Gosh, I need a little break here after that:

These are words to live by for life’s little troubles. Just last Sunday we had dinner with a friend that had to put her old, old dog down: he was nearly 18. We opened a bottle of wine and talked about what a good boy Cricket was—it was very therapeutic for us all. When this approach doesn’t work, and time isn’t healing any wounds, it’s therapy’s turn. Speaking from personal experience, it’s helpful to talk to a professional listener who steers you towards the answers to your life’s big troubles.

I don’t think that we’ve made fun of crazy crochet for at least a week:

Let’s rectify that! Those dish clothes on the right seem like they would be handy at times, but they are very strange looking. Could it be that center plastic scrubby looking like a big pimple in the middle of the cloth? I have a couple of free-standing knitted scrubbies that are so handy. However, they aren’t so handy for washing my nice china and crystal that I don’t want to scratch. You could hardly help it with these two. Plus, I don’t know about you, but it’s a booger to get scrambled egg out of those plastic loopy things—yuck!! I do want to point out how pretty the towel on the left is. The maker did a lovely job, but even with cotton yarn, it would be difficult to dry anything with it.

Last up, I wouldn’t trust this ankle biter:

He’s just lying there, but that’s a stern look if I’ve ever seen one. He’s perfectly willing to sink his teeth into anyone stupid enough to try and pet him or rob his palace. I’m not exactly sure what breed he is, but he kind of looks like a black and less fluffy Pekingese. I felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to bring him home and give him a bath.

Well, that’s it for this week. I looked ahead and the weather warms up until it snows again on Wednesday! It’s snowed the last three Wednesdays so I think that I’ll just remove Wednesday from the calendar and it will be all sunshine and happiness until Spring. Talk about solving life’s little troubles!