Minus 25 wind chills and our dog, Booker, wanted to go for his usual morning walk. I began the layering process to accomplish this feat:
Bra, panties, silk long johns, thick socks, yoga pants, long sleeve T-shirt, wool sweater, down vest, down coat, snow pants, winter boots, neck gator, fat gloves, wool headband. What had I forgotten? Oh yeah, the dog.
I waddled out to the doghouse and clipped on his leash. He bounded down the road dragging me, the human lump, behind. It was pretty out—blue sky and puffy clouds—but painfully cold.
As we walked further a dark lump appeared in the road. Booker approached cautiously until he determined it was a recently deceased squirrel. (Oh great! It’s so cold even the wildlife is giving up.) The squirrel hadn’t been dead long…his body was still supple and limp. Booker scooped him up and began trotting away. This forced me to trot as well, and, with a bazillion layer of clothes, it wasn’t pretty. We tussled over the squirrel, I won?, and tossed it into the woods. I muttered an apology for the cruel treatment, but even those words froze up and shattered.
By now my eyelashes were sticking together like little icy daggers, so we headed home.
Home. Warm. Good.
A short while later I drove into town to workout, and then met my son at a local diner for lunch. He looked at me and said, “Your hair looks nice today.†I almost nose-snorted my Diet Coke.
Between the headband, the squirrel tug-of-war, the workout, the wind, the cold, the “who has time to look in the mirror†morning, he thought my hair looked nice?
Flabbergasted. It was the best part of my day.
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