It was a very cold day today. By cold, I mean it's the type of cold in which the formerly beautiful, fluffy festive snow has been turned to brittle, hard ice. It started to melt yesterday so it lies on the ground in a mottled patchwork quilt of green and white.It's the type of cold that you feel before you even get out of you warm nest of a bed in the morning and know that the minute your feet hit the ground, they're going to get cold.
When I let the puppies out this morning, they started to do their usual mad tear from the back door, all the way across the vegetable patch where they generally stop and inspect for squirrels and bunnies. They usually then proceed to the toolshed where they see if, by any miraculous chance, my blockades to stop them getting underneath the shed have somehow evaporated and they can now get underneath. Fortunately, this is not likely since I used cement blocks and bricks. They can move the bricks but the cement blocks aren't budging. This doesn't stop them from trying to dig but the most they can do is create a furrow that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
This morning, however, they started their mad tear. Then you could see them stop, look about and stare at one another as if to say, "dude, it's COLD! What's up with that?"
They promptly did their business, looking horribly offended at the frozen snow-mottled ground as they did so and then came in. They did not, as they normally do, run in and out multiple times before I finally made them come in for good. This may have been because I usually leave the back door open a crack since the family room which holds the back door is not heated but today, that was not happening. When you can see your breath before you even expose your breath to the outdoors, you know it's cold out there.
The puppies are seemingly fans of snow but not of bitter cold. They actually jumped into their crate of their own free will after coming in this morning for the final time. This is normal for Sookie who knows when it's time but Rory is my little rebel and I usually have to show her the 'crate treat' she's going to get before she's actually in the crate.
Still, winter is upon us and we'll all get used to it. It's technically only been a couple of weeks since it became full-on coat weather. We were still having balmy enough days that it was feasible not to wear a coat in the mornings because it'd be warm enough by lunchtime that a coat was irrelevant.
Now it's not only coat weather, it's scarves, gloves and hat weather. I don't actually own a hat. I want to own one because I find them very practical and they warm the ears. However, I think I'm one of those unfortunate creatures that doesn't do well in hats. At least, I don't think I do. This is because everytime I try on a hat when I'm shopping with someone, they tell me to 'take it off, it looks silly.'
This makes it rather hard to know what type of hat to wear. No one wants to be told they look silly in a hat, after all. I've tried a beret style which ended up not so beret-like and more like a fabric flop on my head. I tried a simple wool hat on but my sister said I looked silly. I'd try one of those earflap hats which, while warming, really aren't my style. I don't think I can pull off an earflap hat.
I'm not sure what other type of winter hats there are, honestly. When I was a child, a simple bobblehat would suffice and no one thought twice about you wearing one. Nowadays, it's all about trying not to look like a doofus while simutaneously trying to keep your ears warm. I obviously shouldn't care that I look like a doofus but, alas, I do. I blame the catalogs. They show these beautiful women in classy hats and coats marching across parks and things. They make everything seem so glamourous. In actuality, if the weather were actually appropriate for the hats and coats that the models are wearing, the models would also probably have bright red noses, shiny eyes because the cold brought tears to them and far less neatness to the newness of the coats.
Of course, this might just be me. Try as I might to be catalog-model worthy in my winter wear, I never look that...neat and tidy. If it's snowing, my coat will be covered with melting flakes. If it's raining, my hair will be stringy around my face because I don't have a hat of any type, doofus-making or not. If it's cold, I don't have time to saunter across a park. Does anyone? Pretty much, when it's cold enough for the full winter wardrobe- hats, scarves, gloves and thick coat- there is no sauntering. There is only bustling around trying to get from warm point A to warm point B.
Still, cold or not, I love winter. I love winter coats, scarves and gloves. I'd love to like hats but, well, there's the doofus-factor. I'd use another word but there's just something amusingly juvenile about the word doofus. I heard it for the first time when we first moved to the U.S. from the U.K. but it's just a fun word to use.
Anyway, on cold days like this, a hat is sort of a necessity. Fortunately, aside from getting out my car to bustle to my building (no sauntering here!), I'm not exposed to the elements that much. It would, however, be nice to have a hat so I could do things like walk the dogs in a fashionable and trendy manner, ala the catalog models but, well, frankly, I'm guessing they don't walk their dogs when it's 23 degrees outside with a windchill of 15 degrees. Perhaps this means I shouldn't walk the dogs either. That would be the sensible thing.
Nevertheless, I'd still like a hat.
Provided it doesn't make me look like a doofus.
Happy Tuesday
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