Wednesday, October 5, 2011

our dogs + rain = you don't want to know...

so today . . . it rained again.

i promised myself i was not going to blog about the rain today. i know some of you get as tired of my weather blogs as you do of my food blogs. but here are the cold, hard facts, people: food and the weather pretty much rule my days. i go to bed thinking about what the weather will be like the next day and deciding what to wear. because if i have to make clothing decisions at 7:00 in the morning, it is not going to be pretty--or i am going to be late. and even after i get dressed, i have to decide if i should wear a coat... or a sweater... or wonder if a scarf around my neck would keep me warm enough... because it may start out cool, but by 11:30 when we are out on the playground it might be hot! but by the time i leave to come home, it might be cool again. or really hot!! you just never know...

and the awful truth is, i think about food all day. what will i eat for breakfast? do i have time to run by mcdonald's and get cinnamon melts? or should i be good and just eat my usual hard boiled egg. will the lunch at school be something delicious like macaroni and cheese? or will it be that noodle-y stuff... or will i even eat at school?!? i could go to jack in the box... or 7-11 for a salad and a brownie... or now that i have an hour for lunch, i could even go home... of course then i would have to actually make something to eat, which would reduce my actual eating time, so maybe it is better to go to jack in the box instead. or 7-11...

and what about dinner?

you see, no matter what else happens during the day, food and the weather are always on my mind. and today it rained. real rain, not that sissy socal stuff. i even had to wear a coat. with a hood. and the only coat i have with a hood is a long, down-filled puffy coat with fur around the hood. i bought it a few years ago just before we headed to oregon for christmas, because they were expecting a big snowstorm. so yes, considering we were just having rain today, it was maybe overkill... but i don't like to carry an umbrella. or get wet. so i left the house looking like nanook of the north... in southern california... in october...

and then i spent the next hour telling parents to take the tiny, colorful umbrellas that they let their children bring to school, home with them. because what am i going to do with 15 drippy hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer umbrellas in my classroom all day?!?!? i've got my hands full with tiny hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer coats and boots! WET coats and boots...

rollie worked at home today, so once again i braved the rain to meet him for lunch. he said mia had spent the morning sitting on the floor next to his chair with her front paw on his leg. this is her signal for "can i please sit in your lap? please?? please?????" mia is not really a lap dog--she is all pointy elbows and paws. but she tries. especially if it is raining, because mia does not like the rain. at all. milo, on the other hand, had come in soaking wet... i saw this as real progress, because when milo first came to live with us, he would not go out in the rain unless i carried him out and stood over him with an umbrella. thank goodness it only rains two or three times a year here...

by the time i left school to come home for the day, it had pretty much stopped raining. as soon as i walked into the house, rollie said, "did you see the garage door??" well, yes, i thought, i had to open it to get my car into the garage. but i hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary... so when he took me back out to the garage to show me what he was talking about, it was clear that i was looking at the wrong garage door.
"when i got home from lunch today, mia was soaking wet!" he said. "she was so wet i had to dry her off with a towel. and then i saw this!" yes, our precious pooch had frantically clawed her way clear through the door!

in all fairness, this door was damaged when we moved into the house. we aren't really sure what happened here before we moved in, but there were some violence issues, and the side door into the garage was one of the casualties. it had been repaired with wood putty, i think, and our painters did a great job of trying to make it look good, but it was still damaged. we knew we were going to have to replace it, we just hadn't done it yet.

i think we will be doing it soon.

because for some strange reason, when rollie left to meet me for lunch today, mia went outside. in the rain of which she is so deathly afraid. and apparently she tried to get back into the house... through the side garage door. i don't know why she would do that! she can go in and out of the house whenever she wants to--we had a doggie door specially constructed to fit next to the french doors so she and milo could go in and out even when we aren't home. but clearly something spooked her. she must have really panicked! she was only home alone for an hour...

as we were sitting in the family room talking about it, i happened to glance out the french doors, and this is what i saw...
i'm pretty sure milo is the culprit in this situation. again, i don't understand it. our patio overhang covers about three feet of grass next to the patio. and he had clearly been out in the rain earlier in the day! i guess i should appreciate that he got as close to the grass as he could without actually going on the grass...but come on!!

this was a rough day for our pups. they are california dogs. they don't do rain.

but thankfully we've now had our two days of precipitation for the fall. sunshine is back in the forecast for tomorrow... right where it belongs!

maybe tomorrow's blog won't be about the weather...

2 comments:

Carroll said...

I think I'm thankful your biggest concerns are food and weather, I said I think. At least you're not sick and other than the weather and the havoc with the dogs and the rain, I think you're okay and that's all a Mom is really concerned for. So hang in there. Life gets complicated at times. And it's only a door and it already needed replacement so you'll get it done sooner rather than later. Have a great day!
Love you Julie!

Mom said...

Poor Mia! I know how frantic she gets during a storm. I thought when we were there that it was the thunder. I didn't realize it was the rain. Maybe you should turn the hose on them on a sunny days and get them used to getting wet outside.
Maybe the dogs walk that brick walk when the grass is wet from the sprinklers because they dont want to get their feet wet. There is certainly something that scares them. You may have to make an appointment with a dog psychologist.
P.S. Are you sure the "crazy"is still in the hoosegow and hasn't returned to the scene of the crime?