Minus four degrees out right now. Yep, first winter smackdown of ‘05. Goody goody.

I found myself singing some of the silly winter-themed not-Christmas-carol music — Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow, Marshmallow World. They all cover the same territory — cold as heck outside, but we build a fire and then who cares if we ever get the car out of the driveway again.

I’m glad to find that it is sort of like that. This was the scene out our kitchen door this morning. It had started snowing yesterday, and since I got caught in the storm when I was still an hour away, I got a little stressed out over it. When I made it home, I treated myself to garlic toast and a pot of tea. Greg started a fire in the fireplace — our first one here — and we got back to work, checking on the snowfall every time the dog needed to go out.

Clementine is a big wimp about rainy days, but it’s not the same with snow. As a matter of fact, once she goes out in the snow, she nearly always just stands there for a moment as if she’s listening to top secret instructions from the Dog Planet … and then she just starts running. I really don’t know whether it just happens because walking through the snow is a bother when you’re only about 30″ high, or if there’s just something about snow that trips a switch in her foolish doggy heart. But snow usually makes her do a couple laps around the back yard at breakneck speed, after which she comes to a complete stop just in front of me and looks at me with a “You want a piece of this or what?” look. I never do want a piece of that, but she’s always hopeful. This morning however, she spent a lot more time looking up at the tree, which is just as well since I can’t capture a blur on film.

The object of her attention turned out to be Romeo the squirrel (minus Juliet, who he chased out of his tree after the weather turned bad. He did the same thing last winter — what a cad!). He couldn’t be bothered to even to chatter at her because it would take valuable time away from eating, and he apparently felt like that was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

But that was all this morning. Since then, there have been sugar cookies and some snow shoveling and some second-tier Christmas decorating that I didn’t think I’d get done. And another pot of tea.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But inside it’s so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

And the people say, “Amen.” Thine the glory.