It is, as my mother would have described it, a raw day, the sort where you feel chilled to the bone from the cold and damp. Right now there is a snow shower with small flakes being blown about by the wind. It won’t amount to anything, but its mere existence is beyond the pale. “Too much, too much,” I whine to no one but myself.

The weather in today’s Cape Times predicted the rest of the week much like today. Each day has the possibility of rain or snow showers. Saturday will be the first sunny day, if the paper’s prediction is correct. I went out earlier and filled the bird feeders. Gracie didn’t even bother to get off the couch until she heard me drop something. She then came to the deck, checked out what I was doing and then went right back inside the house, back to the couch.

Last night I was so tired I went to bed around 9:30, unheard for me, the night owl. I slept through until 8 and stayed in bed under the covers a little bit longer. I was too warm and cozy to face this day. I could see the sky through my window and nothing about it was inviting. When I came downstairs, Gracie went right outside. That surprised me as usually I have to open the door. Not this time: I never closed the back door last night. I guess I didn’t force Gracie out one more time but, instead, just shut off the light in the den and went upstairs to bed.

My legs are still wobbly from the vet bill yesterday. It was closer to $400 than $300, and this was a well dog visit, but the outcome couldn’t have been better. Gracie is healthy, and the vet said she is beautiful. If she didn’t have some grey on her muzzle, the vet said she’d think Gracie is still a puppy. She told me whatever I’m doing is working well as most boxers she sees tend to be overweight, but not Miss Gracie. She also got her nails done yesterday, like a sort of mini-spa.

When I was a kid, we had a boxer named Duke. He never had a well dog visit. He got rabies shots I think but nothing else. My father used to douse him in flea powder periodically. He ate canned dog food with horse meat. He was free to roam anywhere he wanted, and he did. He wasn’t supposed to get on the couch, but he always slept there when we weren’t around, and we could hear him get off the couch in the mornings when we’d go downstairs. Duke lived a long, long life for a boxer though he wasn’t pampered, didn’t eat all natural foods, ate Oreos my sisters fed him and anything else left on our plates. I don’t know if there is a lesson in that. I know we people are less immune to germs because our lives are so antiseptic. Maybe it’s the same with dogs.

I had an idea to do a couple of errands today but that thought disappeared with the first flake. I’m not even going to bother to get dressed. I will out-sloth a sloth today! Maybe I’ll pay some bills so I can claim a bit of industry.