Jake!

Animal Planet posted a great little video on Jake, the chug from yesterday's Puppy Bowl. You can see him run around like a hooligan. It was also announced that he won both MVP and Viewer's choice.

Yesterday I decided to check and see if he was still up for adoption (Puppy Bowl is filmed not to far from us), and it ends up that Jake and Duncan the beagle have both found their families (check out the link for some cute little pictures of them). Now THAT's a real win!

Super Sunday.

Happy Sunday from a still VERY snowy NoVA!

The snow stopped around 5P last night. It's looking like the official total is 28" for our town. Our courtyard-- a protected area-- has 18.5". It's really nutty.

Our town looks wild. That's one of the fun things about a big snow-- with the giant piles, new monochromatic color scheme, sidewalks moved to wherever the snow gets packed down, and enhanced rugged terrain, your neighborhood feels new.

There were quite a few more people out today-- some of who seemed sick of being in the house, and some who realized the grocery store was opened and didn't have to live on pasta and mustard another day. Or maybe they heard that Caribou Coffee was opened and needed to get their fix (they had TWO employees this morning). Many people were out just taking pictures.

What's been fun about this is that people are making the best of it. There are snowmen and pick-up snowball fights all over the area, and people have been sledding down steep closed streets. Dupont Circle had a snowball fight yesterday that was so huge that it made the national news (and fortunately, no crazy cops pulled any guns this time). They just announced that the Federal Government will be closed tomorrow, and a lot of businesses close down when that happens. I expect more of the same tomorrow.

We woke up this morning with plans to go back to the Dog Park and spend some time playing in the snow, but today was colder than yesterday and Alice couldn't handle it. She made it about ten feet from the door and two of her feet cramped up. Alice is also thoroughly confused as to where she's supposed to go when she's outside-- all of her normal spots are buried in snow that comes to her eyes.

The poor girl's been asking for more reassuring snuggles than usual.

On the upside, there's been plenty of time for that. This afternoon we watched one of the best things about Super Bowl Sunday: the Puppy Bowl.

I'm all for holidays that revolve around food, but I couldn't care less about football, and I'm finding that I'm actually turned off by the idea of the Super Bowl this year. But the Puppy Bowl is so cute. If you haven't seen it before, what they do is they stick puppies--all from shelters and rescues-- on a little football field and watch them play. An announcer does play-by-play commentary, there are bunny cheerleaders and hamsters that ride in a blimp over the field, water bowls on the field with cameras in the bottom (so you can see them drinking), and a 10-minute kitten half-time show, where kittens come out on a little stage and play with toys and have confetti dropped on them. There's even a viewer's choice vote for favorite puppy.

The Puppy Bowl is so ridiculous, but it's such a cute, sweet way to counteract the excess and showiness of the Super Bowl. I thoroughly enjoyed snuggling with my puggle on the couch and watching it this year.

One of the players was particularly cute this year. His name is Jake, and he's a chug-- half chihuahua, half pug. Oh, he's so precious! He got the pug rips while he was on the field.

I am so in love with him. Is it just me, or does pug mix really well with every breed?

Snow Day!

Happy Saturday from a VERY snowy Northern Virginia!


It's been all over the news that we're getting a wild snowstorm. The reports are true-- it started yesterday within minutes of when the National Weather Service warning went into effect and it's still going strong.

Fortunately, we started hearing snowfall numbers on Wednesday, so we've had plenty of time to stock the pantry, fridge, and "wine cellar" * **. Our electricity's on, too, so the snow's much more of a fun thing than a crisis.

We woke up this morning around 8A and both The Human Male and I had the same idea: we've gotta go to the Dog Park. Alice loves playing in the snow, and typically will do anything to play in it. This morning, however, she was snuggled up in bed and ignored us until about 9A. When she decided it was time to play, we got bundled up, threw on the YakTrax (which worked fabulously. I really highly recommend anyone living in a wintry area get a pair for safety) and assessed the neighborhood's snow situation.

This was Alice in a protected area of our building yesterday at 3P.


Here she is this morning, after they plowed.


This area in between the buildings had about 8 inches of snow; unprotected had about 16. We've definitely gained a few inches more since then.


Overall, the neighborhood looks pretty okay. We did lose a lot of branches out back and a couple of trees ***, and one of our neighbors got stuck pulling out of the parking garage last night and gave up. But it could be worse.




Interestingly, the tree next to our patio, which has been at least 90% dead since we moved in, seems to be holding up the best. Score for the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!


On our way down to the Park, we saw a couple of our neighbors walking with coffee cups. Could it be that our neighborhood Caribou Coffee was opened?


Yes. Yes, it was. There was one lone employee working in there. I'm not sure if she's the manager, but she's my favorite employee in there (which is saying a lot-- it's a very nice store)-- she's always chipper and calls everyone "hon". I love her.

Our trek to the Park took us a bit longer than usual with the snow.


When we got there, we found that we weren't the only ones that had the idea!


I think we ran into about seven other dogs in total. Everyone was in great spirits. I love how in bad weather, the people who make the effort to venture out have a sense of really happy camaraderie.

The dogs very clearly had a great time, too-- chasing each other around, jumping in the snow, eating sticks.




We're not out of the storm quite yet-- the snow's picked up, the wind's howling, and branches on the trees behind our house are popping and breaking as we speak. But all in all, it could be much worse. I think this is going to be a good weekend.



* We learned last weekend during an 8" snow that people in DC drink straight through snowstorms. We thought this was a neighborhood phenomenon, since we have both a brewery and a wine store a block away. But during a trip to Target on Thursday, we discovered that every single person in line was buying beer. No exaggeration.

** Yesterday one of my coworkers in Santa Barbara, CA asked if I was hunkered down and ready for the snow. I told her that we had food, wine, and movies, so we were good for the duration. She wrote back and said that she has a 200 bottle wine cellar for when they're house-bound. After hearing that, I felt woefully unprepared and made an afternoon trip to the store for a couple extra bottles-- just in case.

*** Late last night we heard a distinct sound of... something. In my haze, it sounded like someone kicking a tupperware or trying to break in. I figured it was ghosts. It ended up that it was the sound of trees breaking. They didn't sound the way I expected.

UPDATED: VERY short notice, but...

I knew this week was going to be busy with work. But then Wednesday rolled around with news of the Snowpocalypse II looming, and things got even busier with preparing for the snow and cancelling weekend plans (of all weekends, I was flying up to Albany. Imagine my surprise-- and amusement-- that the weather issues are on our end). In the hustle, I completely forgot to share something.

Luke, Hudson, and Murphy of 2 Dogs 2,000 Miles are going to be on the Today Show THIS MORNING! They're going to be talking about their travels across the country. If NBC posts it online later, I'll put in on here.

Here's some info on their appearance.

Also, the boys' 2-year adventure will be coming to an end this June in Boston. If you're in the area, I highly recommend walking with him. Alice and I did it in September and it was one of the better decisions that I made last year.


UPDATE: Their segment's been posted! Here it is:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Friday Puppy.

Friday Puppy is the highly kooky and thoroughly enjoyable blog of Matt Baumgartner, the guy who owns Bombers, my favorite place to eat in Albany, New York (and the location of many of the happiest moments of my life). I wrote about Bombers a few months ago when I did my first trip sans Alice-- and probably a few other times, too. Nearly three years out of Albany, and I still have burrito and margarita cravings regularly.

Anyway, Matt and his blog team cover a gamut of topics, from how to get out of speeding tickets in Smallbany, people who love Subarus, to why you should always check the closets when you close up shop for the night (he also wrote a nice tribute to a soldier friend of his that recently passed away that's far less crazy than the regular posts).

While the closet story may be one of my favorite Capital Region stories of all time (lots of weird things happen up there), one of the best features is that on Friday, he posts pictures of dogs on his website-- for no real reason other than to have a whole bunch of cuteness to start your weekend. It is a contest for votes (the winner gets a Friday Puppy t-shirt), but it's just fun to see the cute dogs. Hence the blog's name, Friday Puppy.

Last week I sent Alice's picture in to participate. And guess what? She's in the contest this week!

If you don't mind having your dog's picture posted on a crazy website, I'd say shoot some photos of yours on over, too. The address is fridaypuppy |at| gmail dot com. Wouldn't it be fun to load it up with pugs/puggles/chihuahuas/friends of puggles? We could all be the proud owners of Friday Puppies!

Celebrating.

A couple of days ago I was reading my Twitter feed and came across this message:

Someone I follow had re-tweeted it with the lead-in "Yay!"

I love looking at random pictures of dogs—there’s just something so fun about seeing a fuzzy creature just hanging out and being a dog that’s so sweet and fun. I love their funny spots and coloring, their disproportional noses, the way their ears and heads cock, their silly stances, that look of being carefree in their eyes. I don’t care if the person’s a stranger and we’ll never meet, I just like seeing dogs getting to be dogs. So I clicked on the link and saw Mama K.

Her picture is just too cute. She’s just standing there, hanging out, head tilted inquisitively, but not a care in the world. But I had to go back to the message: she had been poisoned? Someone tried to harm her in a really brutal, ugly way? Wow.

I don’t know why, but I just felt like celebrating her adoption. A dog I never knew existed until 30 seconds beforehand, and her finding her family made me weepy. It was just like, okay, everything bad that happened in your past is now over and done, and you’re going to have a nice life from here on out. That’s just really neat. Yay! indeed.

It made me realize that each time someone writes that an animal found its new family, its way home, or its way out of a bad situation, it really is cause for celebration—whether you’ll ever cross paths with that animal or not. And fortunately, there are a lot of people out there making it happen for them—by adopting, fostering, donating, posting and reposting, volunteering, or just generally supporting. It takes so very little effort to be kind, but it makes such a big impact.

May you find many reasons to celebrate today.

Stop the terrierorists, get treats.

A surrogate member of our family is Jack Bauer. Everyone in my family watches 24, and you don't mess around with anyone while it's on. Certain members of our family have even been known to hang the phone up on other ones who called when the show was on. It's just how things are.

Mamala sent me a great link this morning: scenes from this season acted out by Chloe and the Assistant Director's dogs.




I'd still watch the show if they were played by dogs. In fact, I think if they went back and re-shot Season 6 using Emmy and Bauer*, I'd probably even watch that.


*Isn't Bauer an awesome dog name?!