Pink Dogs, Blue Stole

Y'know, it's kind of nice to be back in the city, in my own little apartment. The cat seems to think so too. We're both in the same boat - love the country, but also love our own (peaceful) space. It's all pros and cons. If there's no woodstove to snuggle up to here, there's also no feeding the stove necessary. And if I do have to do my own cooking, well, it's nice to get back down to normal quantities of food! And as for Julia, maybe here she can't sit out on the porch and watch birds for hours - but at least there are not quantities of noisy humans scaring her, or dogs forcing her to hide under the porch.

And speaking of dogs, we saw the weirdest thing the other day. Talk of your New Years' hallucinations. Both my parents' dogs were all agitated and barking like they heard something, which was the neighbor's hounds out following a coyote trail. And sure enough, several minutes later, the two hounds flashed out from the back fields, across our lawn, and off into the bush on the other side, noses glued to the packed track which we, and apparently the coyotes, use. Nothing weird in that. Except both hounds had been dyed pink. I expect it's so you can see the dogs easier against the snow or something, since they're normally white with spots. But the notion of pink hunting dogs was certainly enough to set Mom and I off in giggles for a while. And think how they'll clash with the owner's camouflage clothes! Plenty of fodder for bad jokes - Mike's a redneck, and now his dogs are pinknecks...Pink elephants on New Year's, maybe, but whoever heard of pink dogs...

Nice to have a few days before school starts to get back into the groove here - inventory pens and paper for school, maybe do a bit of spinning, finish Jen's stole. That's about 80% done, so with any luck I can have it blocking in the next day or so. Assuming, of course, I don't get sidetracked too much by new books from my Christmas gifts...