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A NOTE FOR our southern friends. It is cold here. In Mid Michigan, all the schools are closed because kids can't wait at bus stops or walk a half mile in -10 weather. The windchills are into the minus-30's. It's so cold, people are staying home from the mall.
It's so cold that the anti-science folks are saying clever things like, "And then they claim there's global warming. Haw!"
As it happens, we have been baby-sitting a malamute (as godparents, we hate to say "dog-sitting"), a malamute which owns our son, Steve. An Alaskan malamute is completely unaware that the temperature is below zero. The authorities say that malamutes are perfectly safe at 50 below. They can run halfway across the Yukon dragging a sled at that insignificant temp. When we sent him into the back yard, he will lie in a snowbank and take a half-hour snooze. So we have been walking him. There is a park near here with fields and woods where this dog revels in the snow. He runs and rolls and dips his nose into the snow. He grabs mouthfuls of it. If we throw snow at him, he laughs.
Meanwhile, we bundle ourselves closer into our parkas and wonder what has become of the balance of nature, that he can be liberated and we can feel so entombed.
1 comment:
I remember taking my old dog Bear(RIP) out for walks in the dead of winter. He was some kind of winter dog mix.
Anyway, the temperature outside would be well below 0C so I would dress like I was doing a space walk or a deep sea diving expedition. He, naturally, was wearing only his harness.
He was never one to be too hasty. He took his time to get the scent of all the flowers along his path that had long since gone to the garden immortal. Often he would bury his face in a snow bank in order to acquire a scent. It would often take 15-20 minutes to walk around the block.
Since we were moving so slow much of the extra stuff I was weraing wasn't worth a damn. I'd spend all the walks doing jumping jacks and running back and forth in order to keep warm. So picture some guy jumping around running back and forth like a maniac while this stoic dog moves placidly along taking time to look up every once in a while to try to understand what the heck was wrong with his companion. I think he was scretly laughing at me.
-Marty
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