Suzy Says

Care to join us?

While people back East are getting covered in snow and dreading the return of the Polar Vortex’s evil twin (and if I wish I’d never heard of it, I can just imagine how they feel), we are having clear, starry nights flooded with moonshine, the temperature about one or two Celsius degrees, and days that get close to the 20 degree mark on the C scale. At some point in the morning, I open the doors, letting in fresh air and temporarily freeing me from being the cat doorman. They don’t make me wear a uniform, but they don’t tip, either. Maybe it’s the lack of pockets in their fur coats.

January these days is a lot more like Junuary, so in celebration, I cleared my schedule and headed to Big River with Megan and Stella on Friday. As you can see, it was a beautiful day:

We didn’t even need jackets or sweaters! Bare arms in January still seems very strange to me. Stella was wearing her bright orange “Adopt Me” vest, along with a big smile:

The gate leading to the road beside the river was open for the first time I can remember. Usually, we have to take a little dirt path, scented with wild fennel, beside the big metal gate. The gate was open because the Parks workers were repairing the road. One of the Parks guys was there to warn us about the giant trucks. Stella jumped on him for joy and kissed him. There are no strangers as far as Stella is concerned – just friends she hasn’t met yet. Unlike most girls, she enjoyed every drop of attention she got from the construction workers. And she got a lot.

She was completely unperturbed by the huge, loud trucks and people whizzing past on their bikes, and her only complaint about other dogs was not being allowed to play with all of them. Stella is taking the Canine Good Citizenship Class which Star passed a couple of years ago, so Megan is working hard on training Stella for her new home. Apparently Stella’s former guardians neglected to teach her minor things like coming when called, not to eat food from tables, and not to chew things like iPod connector cables and seat belts in the car. Or Schatzi’s old dish. No one can use that mangled piece of plastic now, at least not as a dish.

Other than some leafless trees, you would never know it was winter. The grass is still “golden” and the streams are low. I know pampas grass is a pest, but it was so pretty in the sunlight:

And the Village, where both residents and businesses alike are beginning to have water delivered, looked like a postcard:

In the evening, we sat by the fire at Megan’s house and had mojitos while watching “Legally Blonde” (I’m sorry, I love that movie) and listening to the dogs snoring happily.

It was a great day. So much more fun than work!