Going away

I'm heading out tomorrow morning, off to RI for a long weekend.  My mother had no power for several days, and often gets the blues this time of year, so I figured I'd give her a break and visit.  "Do you take your dogs?" people ask.  Well, so far, yes, but I'm wondering if maybe it isn't time to start thinking about going without them.  It would be simpler--for my mother and for me.  Well, not this trip.

It's been a pretty good couple of weeks.  I got to spend time with Duncan & David while they were here for their winter visit.  Dinner one night, dessert another, and lots of email & some phone conversations.  Duncan is at home in Minn. now, after being stuck in Burlington for a few days due to last week's storm.

We had a storm, but escaped pretty much unscathed.  We got about a foot of snow, which isn't that hard for us to handle.  Our snow was light and fluffy, easy to shovel.  Unlike the snow in New England, which was wetter and thus much less pleasant.  And there was more of it.  We've had a couple of inches since then, nothing "measurable," as they say.  Not sure if we're planning to have more snow soon or not.  It is warm, 30's, but due to get cold again while I'm gone.  This means I MUST REMEMBER to shut off my pump & hot water, and turn up the heat when I leave.

I haven't really been doing much.  Lots of time spent on the couch with the dogs, watching TV and catching up on reading.  Lots of New Yorkers to read.  Now I'm caught up and where I should be.  For now.  I subscribe to a lot of magazines--something I got from my father, I think.  When I was growing up we subscribed to 3 newspapers, a zillion magazines of all sorts--Life and Look, Time and Newsweek, American horticulture, Punch (which was a huge puzzle to me--I couldn't figure out what was funny about the cartoons, not really realizing that it was a British magazine) and others.  My father was pretty good about reading them as they came in, or at least that's what I remember.  I don't remember the huge piles of magazines I now have at my house in my childhood homes.

The dogs are doing all right.  They like the snow a lot and have been romping and running all over.  Treasure has some ailment that's making her limp and I can't figure out what's up with that.  I was going to take her to the vet in Keeseville last night but just couldn't bear to drive half an hour when I got home.  Bad dog owner.  It might be related to her toe injury, when she got her toe stuck in a trap n the fall.  But it could be something else.  I'll deal with it NEXT week.  She doesn't always limp, which is one of the reasons I haven't taken her in--with my luck she wouldn't be limping at the vet's. 

There's not much going on, just work, home, fires, television, reading, dogs, phone calls.  Book group is next weekend and so far pretty much no one is very fond of the book.  Maybe it'll get better if I read more.  Let's hope so.