Michigan in the Winter

Today our Cherry Capital Cycling Club newsletter arrived. This poem was on page 1:

Michigan in the Winter

It's winter in Michigan
and the gentle breezes blow
at seventy miles an hour,
at twenty-five below

Oh how I love Michigan
with the snow up to your butt,
you take one breath of winter
and your nose gets frozen shut

The weather here is wonderful
I guess I'll hang around,
I could never leave Michigan
because I'm frozen to the ground.

-----

Well, what can you do. In the spirit of this lovely poem, here is a sampling of some winter-time Michigan activities.

Some people choose to get artistic:

Um, these people are not me. I just saw these when I was walking Maggie around town one day.

Here's my effort.

(Obviously, some dogs have NO appreciation for art. She walked right through it!)


Then, of course, there is skiing. Maggie and I went exploring up at the end of the peninsula, where Mom and I had visited the lighthouse at the 45th parallel. Turned out to be a wonderful place to ski! Here are some pictures from December, pre-booties:


It truly was a winter wonderland.





























Then there's the Vasa Trail, which is a groomed trail (no dogs allowed). Here's a picture of the Vasa from today:

If it's too cold to go outside, one can engage in icicle watching. Here are a few views from the front door:





















Okay, this one is a little scary. But not as scary as these MONSTER icicles seen on the way back from the baby shower the other day! I had to stop and gawk (and take this picture, of course!).















Whoa!

Another favorite winter-time activity is measuring the snow. Here we see a ruler in the back yard in December:


I would show you one from today, but you wouldn't be able to see any of the ruler.

So there are plenty of fun things to do around here, even if it is 7 below with the wind chill.

75% Success

A Magazine Conpiracy

So the other day, Mark and I were at this baby shower, playing one of those baby shower games (what is a baby llama called? a baby hummingbird? etc.). We needed something to write on, so we grabbed a magazine from the coffee table. And that magazine happened to be one of those popular women's magazines. And Mark said, "Have you ever noticed that these magazines always have dieting tips and advice about healthy eating on the cover, alongside a giant picture of a fat-laden, artery-clogging dessert?"

I looked at the magazine. By golly, he was right!

Is it just me, or does Easy Chocolate Chip Cake seem to fly in the face of dropping 10 pounds fast? And I'm guessing it's probably not much help in lowering your cholesterol, either.

So I looked through a few others.

Hmm, no-bake cheesecake is apparently a good way to start off the "Eat-Whatever-You-Want" diet.

And how about this:
No doubt the way to lose 567 pounds is by eating this Waterslide Cake!

Okay, I'm kind of amazed. ONE magazine cover with such blatant contradictions, all right. But it really does seem to be EVERY SINGLE ISSUE! There is the helpful healthy living advice and right beside is the GIANT PICTURE OF SOMETHING THAT GOES AGAINST ALL OF IT!

How can they get away with this? They say they're helping, but they know our reptilian brains go straight to the chocolate chip cake! UNFAIR!

I don't know why this makes me so mad, but it just does. I guess it's because I am feeling betrayed by Women's Day and Family Circle! It's like finding out your grandma wasn't really on your side, after all. Sure, she coached you through your dance routine, but then she waxed the floor the day of the performance! How are you supposed to succeed under these conditions, with big cheesecakes staring you in the face? HOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW?

Anyway, back at the baby shower, it turned out a baby llama is called a "cria." (We didn't get that one.)

And a baby hummingbird...

drumroll, please...

a "chick!"

(Sad to say, we didn't get that one either!)

Biking in TC

So yesterday I decided to bike to town. I hate driving; I refuse to be dependent upon the automobile. It's one thing I really miss about Portland. And Mark and I had wound up with two cars parked at his work, for reasons that are too boring to explain here. So I thought okay! This is the golden opportunity, the reason to get my butt on the bike, get motivated! Plus, though it was 17° out, it wasn't snowing. At least not at that moment.

So I located my very wonderful cold-weather biking pants, which actually I hadn't gotten much opportunity to use in Portland since it's usually rain that's the issue, not cold, and I loaded up on the socks (three pairs) and inserted some toe-warmers and stuffed wool mittens into my ski outer-mitts and broke open some hand-warmers on top of that and piled on the long underwear, fleece liner and down jacket, scarf, ear warmer and hat on top of that, and put a fleece face-mask in my pocket, just in case. And started off for Mark's work, to pick up the car.

And you can probably guess that I was WAY TOO HOT!

Definitely did not put on the fleece face mask. Undid the scarf and moved the hand-warmers to the special pockets that are on the OUTSIDE of the mittens.

And then my neck was freezing but the rest of me was sweating.

Well, I haven't quite perfected the clothing thing. You'd think I hadn't biked around Iowa City for 11 years! Ahh, how quickly we forget.

Anyway, besides being too hot, I ran into a few other obstacles. The road was plowed, so no problem there, and I have my nice knobby-tire bike. But when it came time to get on the sidewalk because the road there is very busy, it was impossible. And to top it all off, my bike suddenly refused to change gears. So I ground to a halt pretty quickly and had to walk. Here's what it looked like:

Let's take a closer look at this lovely path:

So I walked along until the path cleared up, hopped back on the bike, then back off again as I came to THIS:


It seems that when the snowplow goes by, it just sprays dirty snow all over the bike path! Lovely, eh?

Anyway, at this point I realized I had actually missed the turn that takes you under a bridge and into town, so I had to haul the bike back over this mess and break tracks through (thankfully) nice white, fluffy snow to get downtown. And finally, I made it! And then it was fun biking through town and I managed to get right down 6th street, though the snow was a little deeper there because it's a side street. And I made it to Munson and voila, got the car. :-)

Moral of story: biking to town in TC during winter is not impossible, but allow extra time.

Shake Your Bootie

It's been so-o-o-o-o cold here that our poor little Maggie has been having some distress about being out in it! So Mark and I made a little stop at the Dog Bakery last weekend. The Dog Bakery is a store here in TC devoted to baking yummy things for dogs...oh, it smells heavenly!...as well as selling various other dog accoutrements. And one of those dog accoutrements is booties! We brought Maggie in for a fitting on Saturday. While we were at it, we had her try on a fleece jacket. While I did love the jacket, I wasn't convinced she really needed it...so we only went home with the booties.

Well, let me tell you about dogs and booties. It is not a combination that naturally goes together. First of all, the booties are hard to get on. Now Maggie is a very patient dog, but it was still evident that she was not too enthusiastic about the booties. I tried to explain how much better it would be when we got outside for the walk, but she didn't seem convinced.

Next, no matter how tight you make the velcro straps, THE BOOTIES FALL OFF. Out of four booties, Maggie managed to divest herself of three. She actually got quite strategic...she'd run ahead to the end of her retractable leash, then sit down and work on the back ones with her teeth.

Finally, she'd had enough. She just sat down! And then she lay down!

I, being the mean person I am, made her get up and keep going. The nice lady at the Dog Bakery said it takes time to break them in. Come on, Maggie! Here we go!

She reluctantly complied.

We walked about a third of a mile, then turned around. You have never SEEN a dog so eager to get home. Racing, galloping home! Straining at the end of her leash, booties thwacking in the snow! Ahhh, home at last! Goodbye booties!

We'll try them again another day.

Day of Service

Does everybody know about this Monday, our national "Day of Service?" I got an email from Barack Obama the other day...or was it Michelle, can't remember...we're all so close. Anyway, the email was talking about this Monday, January 19 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and how it's going to be DAY ONE of the CHANGE THAT'S COMING TO AMERICA! And you can be part of it!

So I checked out the options, which you can do, too, at usaservice.org...and I found an opportunity to help with a supply drive for the local Boys and Girls Club. So that's how Mark and I (yes, I roped him into it) ended up standing outside Wal-Mart in 11° weather for two hours this afternoon, passing out little "wish lists" and collecting donations. (We had to do our service this weekend because Mark is working on Monday.) Here we are with our Day of Service compadres:

So 11°...yes, it's been pretty cold here. But whenever I was feeling the least bit sorry for myself, I'd check my Apple widgets (they're so cool!) and notice that however cold it was here, it was even COLDER in Iowa City. When we had a high of 10, they had a high of NEGATIVE THREE. Not even up to zero! Their HIGH! End of pity party up here.

Besides being very cold (and I've decided that this ranks as "very cold," whereas Iowa City weather this week has been RE-E-EALLY COLD), it's also been--surprise--snowing!

"How odd; this hardly ever happens around here," is Mark's response each time I remark that it's snowing. Again.

The snow in the back has now about reached bench level, so it's all going to be one giant massive snowdrift back there pretty soon. Here are a few pics, and for comparison, here's one from warmer times:

and yesterday, when the sun made a rare appearance:
and today:
The little tracks are Maggie's. In her doggy mind, snow=back yard grass, and come spring, we are going to have one heck of a poop-fest to pick up!

But hey, that's for after the snow melts.

Happy Day of Service, everyone!

When One Bed Just Isn't Enough

Jazzer hogs both beds, while poor Max is relegated to the floor!