Dances with Humans - Dog days

Smudge here - just a quick report this week.  Although I am a busy chap about town with a hectic schedule of walking, sleeping, sniffing and peeing - sometimes a pup just has to chill man.

Just in front of the Big Window For Nosey Dogs, the heat pours into our favourite room.

Honey and me catch some rays.

We dodge between the long winter shadows to find our spot.

We carefully rotate so that our whole body cooks slowly.

Sometimes the Reluctant Dog Owner throws down a cushion and joins us for a wee doze.

There is nothing nicer and more comforting than the heat of the afternoon pouring all over your body, while the snow glistens outside at minus 12 degrees.

We hard-working dogs deserve this crash-pad.  We stay here until we can bear it no more.  Then we get up, panting and puffing with our fur on fire, and flop out on the 

cold, tiled Food Room floor.

I tell ya, life can be tough.

Forgot to add the picture of me tree!

So busy talking ABOUT the tree in my last post, that I forgot to actually include the tree - so for "Anonymous" who reminded me, here you go!

Deck the Halls

Do your Christmas decorations follow a theme?  Are you colour co-ordinated, or scruffily and happily dusting off years of mis-matched family traditions?  Do you love digging out your shiny treasures from the loft or basement each year, or are you bored to tears with the same-ol', same-ol'?

I split into both camps.   I mean, first out of the cupboard has to be the Santa Cookie Jar.  Essential for every December-related eventuality.


For several years now, I have yearned for a "professional looking" tree - something direct from one of those high-class store window displays.  Mono-coloured, 12 feet tall, smothered in about 8000 lights and simply spectacular.  A really stunning wow-look-at-me tree!

What I actually put up is quite different (she says with mild understatement).  The decorations we have gathered during seventeen years of marriage, twelve of which have included the tastes and artistic offerings of Daughters Number One and Two are kinda fun and juvenile in nature.  Traditional in an "old-fashioned toy" way.  I don't think they are tacky but I accept others might!  But everything we have collected still makes me smile, so it can't all be bad.

Last week at work, we had our Christmas Smorg lunchtime gathering, which included a gift exchange and I was delighted to open up these very cute stockings.  I knew the kids would love them.

And the reason for my delight is that they match some other bits and bobs in our home - like these newly-purchased and deeply stylish quality chair covers (at my husband's insistence would you believe?) and also the tree-skirt.

A recent trip to Costco (I've already documented how dangerous that place is) resulted in the purchase of some cheeky bears.  


Necessary?  Not really.  Fun?  Definitely.  Make me smile?  Certainly.


But this year I have (unilaterally) decided to leave some of our family traditions in a box in the basement - and finally go posh.  Of course, it involved the careful pursuit of some carefully co-ordinated shopping, but I stuck to my guns and worked at it.  You would expect nothing less of me.

Oh, and as an aside, apparently those ball-shaped shiny decorations you hang on a tree are not called baubles in Canada, or not in my workplace anyway.  Who knew?  They all gently took the mickey out of me for calling them baubles.  Is that a very British word?  Here, they are simply balls, ornaments or decorations.  But I like the word baubles.

I now (fanfare please) do have my gorgeous - albeit slightly stunted at only 7 foot tall - colour co-ordinated tree that finally looks like something out of shop window.  Yay!  Lime greens, reds and golds rule the day.  I'm chuffed with the end result and just need another 7900 lights to give the full effect.


And do my girls like it?  Not so much.  They're still trying to work out why the blue cat ornament from Bob The Builder cannot grace the tree this year.

Now then - if this time of year fits into your world, go and finish putting up all your shiny stuff - it's only two weeks away you know.

SkyWatch Friday - The lowering sun

Happy SkyWatch Friday

My World Tuesday - Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Come for a little stroll along one of my usual dog walking haunts.

Pawprints

and hoof prints - the only clue that the deer take control of this landscape of an evening, once all the pesky dog-walkers and their four-legged friends have vacated their home territory.

Narrow paths are carved through the drifting snow by determined pedestrians.

Long winter shadows, even though it is just after midday and the sun is at it's highest point for today.  

How is it that my husband transforms into tall, skinny stick man, but I remain short and dumpy - where are my tall, skinny winter-shadow legs?

Interesting scents that must be investigated....

... and with noses buried and fluffy bums in the air, we must investigate some more.

The golf course lake is mostly frozen over and covered in a smooth blanket of snow.  Inviting but dangerous.

And this is the view over the river valley, and the town of Cochrane, looking towards those mountains.

And despite the clear skies, there is little warmth to the day and the blues look weak and watery.  

But at least we can actually see the sky today - so I am happy!

My World Tuesday - Have a super week.

Bureaucracy at play

Same-sex marriage is legal in five states apparently, in the USA.

But it is not recognised at a federal level with regards to immigration and therefore a US citizen who may be married to someone from another country cannot currently sponsor his or her same-sex spouse under the spousal visa route.


Seems a bit mad to me.  And unfair.  I was reading this article today on the BBC website.


Having been through an immigration process to move to Canada from England, I fully understand a country's need to only allow who it wants to live there.  I have no issue with this in principle.


But to have two different layers of what is or is not a marriage/spouse, etc, sounds like the wheels of bureaucracy grinding slower than a slow grinding thing.  The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage for federal purposes as a union between a man and a woman, and was brought in to law in 1996 - that is not very long ago.    So really, it was out of date at it's inception.


The US immigration authorities are perhaps (in)famous for interviewing and scrutinizing male/female couples to verify they are "really" a couple and that it is not a marriage of convenience.


I suppose if this same-sex campaign to have their marriages recognised is eventually successful, then the next thing they can look forward to will be similar scrutiny to prove they are "really" gay! 


(steps off soap-box and proposes to look up the state of play in the UK and Canada just out of interest!)

A tad chilly hereabouts

This sums up the week really.

Hello winter, my old friend ....  

I've come to talk with you again!

It did get to -35 degrees on Tuesday evening, 

but to be quite frank, it was too bloody cold 

to be hanging around with a camera!

See where the "Frostbite" part of my blog title 

comes from now?

No SkyWatch from me this week - too cloudy and cold and I'm afraid my fireplace looked much more attractive.