Here in Des Moines we are experiencing an early bout of winter. It is making me question my existence on this planet, as it does each and every winter. For me, that means for three winters I have wondered why I live in a place where it is so cold I'm afraid to walk on sidewalks or to go outside or to drive. What makes it worse for me is that Marcy reacts very strongly to ultra-cold weather, and refuses to go outside to pee or poop, and then I worry that she needs to pee or poop, and then when she does go outside her body twists up into what can only be described as a contortion of sheer and utter pain in reaction to the fucking cold. I hate this shit.

I know we actually have it pretty good here in central Iowa. I could be in North Dakota. My fantasy is that I will someday build a greenhouse kind of thing for the furry swirl, a place that will have grass and dirt and be outside yet that will not be frozen or bone-chillingly frigid so that she can use it to pee and poop. Last winter I dug a lovely crop-circlish kind of poop area out of the snow in my front yard, so that the swirl could simply run out the front door and use this relatively snow-free area to do her thing. She ended up using it all the time. This year I am going to shovel it out in the shape of a chihuahua.