This one's for you, Minimiss!

And for people who would like a white Christmas and are unlikely to get one, maybe Gaby, MAJ, Hazel, Eepy, Diane in Singapore (not Diane in NC, I think you're buried already!), maybe Bernadette, too.

We had the promised snow, over a foot of it, I think, and the good news is that it's so deep it stopped up the draft, house is quite cosy, and the bad news is there's a lot of it, and the plows are hardly started.



The car out front with the wipers sticking up so they don't freeze to the windshield is mine, and the newspapers are next to it, in a snowdrift.



Out back the patio is full of snow, all the planters and furniture wearing white hats.





The more good news is that it fell on a weekend so there was not the snarl of traffic that would have happened in the week.

The bad news is that it happened on the weekend, fouling up all sorts of Christmas plans from Piffaro's concert, and other people's travel -- friends stuck in Europe because the US airports on the east coast are closed tight -- to MC's massive holiday dinner for relatives, which I'm guessing didn't go forward...and probably kids hate that they won't get a snow day!

The wonderful news for HP and me is that, being retired from the petcare world, we don't have to mush out in this to get to hungry little animals waiting to see us in their houses, and having to trudge through feet of unplowed snow up driveways, very few people thinking to arrange for plowing on their vacation.

Vivid memories of being pulled over by police wanting to know what I was doing out in this dangerous weather and having to explain, and being reluctantly allowed to proceed. And of following the snowplow some days, very slowly but at least moving. And of happy little pets jumping with glee because Food was On Its Way!

I never minded working Christmas Day when I had the petcare biz, used to declare Christmas on another day and celebrate it with HS on a day of our choosing. It was fun to go from house to house being greeted ecstatically maybe 20 times in a morning! and then doing it all again in the evening.

Clients would give a little extra then, too, often regifted items, I suspected, but they were nice anyway -- fine wool shawls, massive boxes of Godiva chocoloates, Limoges porcelain animal figures, waaaaay too many cat themed scarves and figurines, but the intent was lovely...I used to wonder what fool put it around that business owners would be insulted by a money tip. This one would have been perfectly happy with it!! you work very hard for very little if you work with live animals. But for 12 years it was the day job that enabled me to continue as a studio artist, and I was happy for that.

I was watching a little video from ZooBorns the other day, of wild puppies which had been nursed by a pet dog after their wild mother was killed, and they are now at an age where they grab your pant leg and tug, or chew up your shoelaces when you think they're just snuggling up.

It reminded me of all the gloves I had to replace after the fingers were bitten out by eager pets, and all the jackets with pockets torn off in search of treats, and the shoelaces chewed to ribbons...it was an unexpected business expense, replacing these things routinely.

The found art photo I took the other day before the snow buried it got some interesting responses, from

The Pope before a nose job
An animal looking right, head and shoulders
Two pictures at once, two animals
Maybe a cat
Maybe a pig
No idea what it might be
Whistler's Mother, created from found objects
Miss Piggy in her best evening shawl

The last two were my takes! heh.

Keep warm, everyone! and remember if you envy us the snow, that snow is repurposed water, very very very heavy to dig and throw...