Cold Snap

And the cold and snow just keep on coming! Lately, when I'm wheeling K out to the car at 10pm on MWF, we're definitely re-thinking the advantages of having her dialysis scheduled so late. By the time I'm going to pick her up, my metabolism is slowing down, and the cold just sinks into the bone.

Doesn't it figure, the hint of a sore throat this weekend turned into a cold with all the symptoms today. Nuts. Just in time for the holidays. So we stopped at Rite Aid on the way home from dialysis, to get me some day/night Comtrex.

K got a ride from Freddie to wound care today, for her regular Monday morning checkup. She also had an ultrasound appointment to check out her leg circulation, which turns out to be quite good. So they don't think they can blame her slow healing wounds on that. They took Mandy in the car with them, but maybe didn't quite keep her as warm as I do, and now K is thinking she'll never take her out on a day like this again. She said Mandy appeared to be enthralled by the Cherry Creek Mall, which she got to experience from K's lap in the wheelchair. Her eyes were very big, and she was checking out everything and everyone they passed.

Brr!

OK, now it's getting to be just plain cold around here. We woke up to a beautiful clear, cold, minus 8 degree day. The Denver airport set a new record low for today, at -18 degrees. I tried to snap a sunrise picture out the deck door, but the outer door window fogged up the second I opened the inner door. At work we're wondering what brainiac decided that the men's bathroom, which is on an outside wall, didn't need to be heated.

Snow

It was a cheery 5 degrees F this morning! There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground when I took Mandy out for her morning ritual. She really hopped to it, and was ready to come back inside in about 10 seconds. Don't blame her. It was cold enough to sting my cheeks as I stood out there and waited for her. The snow has started up again, a very holiday-ish light curtain of white drifting down.

K told me yesterday afternoon that her foot is doing pretty well.

Cold Snowy Day

We woke up to a beautiful snowy morning! A nice brisk day for a trip to the dentist. K had a lousy night, and didn't get to bed until I was getting up this morning. Mandy wasn't too excited about going out in the snow this morning, but jumped at the chance to go for a short walk, this cold clear evening.

Lights

Mandy and I went for a walk around the neighborhoods, and enjoyed the Christmas lights that are starting to pop up everywhere. I thought it was kind of funny that she showed up in this picture. I didn't notice her silhouette until I got home and pulled it off the camera. Sorry for the blur. It's tough getting a decent night picture with any kind of hand held camera, much less the primitive one in my cell phone.

Mandy and the Fox

She's been so good most of the time, and then... I took her out to the side yard near midnight, for her pre-bedtime relief break. On this rare occasion, I didn't have any shoes on, and was shifting my weight from one sore foot to the other on the cold hard concrete, while admiring our neighbor's Christmas tree, and waiting for her. Then I heard a quiet little "rrr" and the rapid patter of little feet, and looked over to see her disappearing across the street, between our neighbors' houses. I could only presume that she'd seen a fox on a yard over there, and that the fox was leading her into the shadows behind the houses. I nervously watched for a few seconds, and sure enough, out from the other side of the house came a fox at full run, big fluffy tail floating in the breeze, with Mandy a few feet behind. I called for her to stop and come back, but of course she was pretty well fixated. They flew across the street, and disappeared into the space on the other side of our house. I guessed they were heading down the hill toward the fox's den under the juniper bushes. I went into the house and put on my boots, then went out on the deck with a flashlight, hoping I could see or hear them down there. I heard a jingle that I thought was Mandy's collar tags, and whistled and called for her to come home. No response. I ran down the stairs and went out on the patio to see if I could see her. Nothing. I realized the neighbor's dogs were out, and the jingle was probably them. I was losing hope every second, that she'd survived her midnight encounter with this fox. Then I thought hopefully that maybe the jingle *was* her, coming back up the hill, and went back upstairs and out the side door where we'd been, to see if she had returned there. Nope. I wandered around to the front of the house, and right then, here comes Mandy, trotting proudly back from around the front of the house and up the driveway in the dark. At first I thought she was limping, but then I realized she was having a hard time walking, because she was so busy strutting her stuff. She's such a lucky, lucky, lucky, dog.