What's With the Weather?

I understand that we live in a rainy part of the country, but lately it seems that the rain has been accompanied by a rather unfortunate cold snap. This morning found Frank in a bit of a funk as the sound of chirping morning birds was, yet again, replaced by the sound of a wet, cold drizzle.

Oh Frank! It is quite sad when a pug is not at all eager to be up and frolicking about.

Eventually Frank did find his way out of bed to investigate the day.
First he spent some time staring at a new turtle addition to our home (courtesy of Grandma Herriott)...

After several heartfelt, yet obviously unsuccessful, yips attempting to lure the colorful reptile into play, he moved on to his next activity - staring at me whilst I tried to enjoy the New York Times and wondering, I believe, how I could possibly allow the weather to be so completely offensive.

Oh Frank. I am not sure at all that this is the proper way for a dog to sit.

I finally came to the conclusion that rather than sulking about all day, it was time for us to embrace the weather. Sadly, we no longer have the perfect coat for a cold, rainy day - we have a coat for the rain, and a coat for the cold, but not for the two together. My first thought was to go for a shopping foray, but since Frank and I are attempting to find solutions for hard economic times, we decided to improvise...



Voila! The warm and fuzzy fleece is UNDER the delightful reflective raincoat, and doesn't Frank look pleased?

His mood did improve when he realized that we were headed to the dog park...


...but then drastically plummeted anew when we ran into some dogs who investigated Frank as if he were a strange brightly colored squeaky toy as opposed to the small and handsome pug that he is.


Oh Frank. How embarrassing. But really, they have long noses to heat up the air before it goes into their bodies; it is not your fault that you were bred to warm the feet of nobles and not for the rainy cold weather that now seems to be the norm for 3 out of the 4 seasons in the Pacific Northwest.

After heading back to the car, I removed the soaking fleece layer, then steered us to the nearest pet store in the hopes of finding some more ammunition with which to stave off the impending pug boredom.

As you can see, Frank looks decidedly more pleased at this point.

And why wouldn't he be? Here he proudly presents his plunder.

Oh Frank, yet again, we did not do so well with the economic responsibility.

5 minutes after we got home, guess what showed up...

He spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and enjoying his new chewies in the sun.

Oh Frank. Now you really do have everything.

Another Good Solution for Hard Economic Times....

... buy in bulk!

You can imagine the joy that filled Frank's heart when I walked through the door with this delightfully large bag of dog food hoisted upon my shoulder. We do enjoy the Dick van Patten's Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Sweet Potato and Venison formula. It has kept Frank's coat extraordinarily shiny, clean, and dandruff free. The sad news is that it is not your bargain basement dog food. So, rather than buying my usual 2 bags of 5 pounds each, I purchased the one 15 pound bag, which (if I had purchased 3 rather than 2 bags of 5 pounds) saved me about 5 dollars. Frank's dad does not feel that 5 dollars is worth the storage problem of the big bag; but I digress...

Upon arrival home Frank very obediently posed for the above picture by the bag, and after praising him for his delightful manners, I proceeded around the corner in order to take off my shoes. As I was unlacing shoe number 2, a rather suspicious rustling sound found its way to my ears...

Oh my! Frank you are a very bad dog indeed!

As you can see, he was rather mortified to have been caught red handed.

Lack of Sleep

A colleague asked me the other day whether I had been sleeping well; apparently I was looking a bit tired - never an observation that leaves one feeling dashing. While it is true that there is quite a lot on my mind right now, I am sad to say that the fault of my ragged appearance and tired eyes may lie, at least a wee bit, with someone else....

Oh Frank. I am sad to report that these are some of his lighter snores.

I suppose it would be wise to kick him out of the bed, but really, whose going to disturb this?:

Oh Frank, if only we all could feel so warm and secure!