Winter wackiness

It's Saturday, Florian and I have been sick for days, and we've been snowed in since last night! Might as well write a blog post.

 

Last weekend, we were going to take a nice romantic trip to West Virginia for some hiking and relaxing. 










But why relax when you can obey an anxious, dangerous, and emotionally fraught compulsion? We decided at the last minute to drive 7-8 hours instead to upstate New York, where my parents' house in the Adirondacks may sell anytime and we both wanted to go there one more time first. 

It is still so bizarre to be in places where every inch feels like my Mom--but she's not there!












The dogs got some good running around but I was worried about Dahlia and her bald pinkness in the cold. 

The dogs only got warm when we all got under the blankets for a cold, sleepless night. 












One night of that was enough! After a thorough, cathartic emotional breakdown, I was able to leave there feeling satisfied. Satisfied that we'd honored Mom and her love for that place. And satisfied that for me to consider keeping that place, and imagining that I could be content living in Bleecker, NY or keeping it and visiting it maybe a week out of the year and letting it rot the rest of the time, is completely bonkers (as Mom would say). 

We took a slow drive back through back roads and stayed in a Motel 6 on the way back. Heaven for dogs and humans, though this human didn't sleep there either. 










All that emotional stress and a few nights of no sleep meant immune system meltdown! All week its been a challenge to get out of bed and get the dogs out, but I've done it.

Even today, when I could barely get the doors open due to 15 inches of snow and counting.

Since it wasn't like we could do much of anything else, Florian and I decided to take a walk/ski with the pups through the neighborhood. And Fozzie, who can't handle humans locomoting in an unusual way, decided to attack Florian's skis.







 











Little chilly Dahlia would probably have had a better time if she'd let me put on her booties, but she is a dog so a reasonable move was out of the question. 

We got those shivering things home and rested ourselves for a few hours before cabin fever compelled us to take another walk, this time without the pups. 

A couple miles through partially plowed streets, 

and Florian almost became one of those frozen explorers they unearth in a PBS documentary a few centuries from now.























Good thing it's so beautiful!

And good thing Dahlia can be persuaded to go out and pee. 

Because looks like we won't be going anywhere for a while.