The Dog Cupcake.

Yesterday morning, The Human Male and I ate at a great little place in Old Town Alexandria called Bittersweet Cafe. Bittersweet is a cute little deli-type restaurant with sandwiches, incredible baked goods, and a "hot bar" that changes I think fairly frequently. They also serve their iced tea and lemonade in the biggest cups I've ever seen. You actually need two hands to hold it, which is perfect during DC's oppressive Augusts.

I hate to admit it, but I sometimes "forget" about Bittersweet-- we tend to go to the same couple of places when we hit up the OT, so it's always an afterthought. So it was a very fun surprise when we found out that they make dog cupcakes. They make little ones for puppies and regular/huge ones for normal-sized dogs, and they're carrot cake flavored (made with carrots, flour, and honey, with some kind of cream cheese-looking icing). We had to get one for Alice.

When we gave it to her, she was so thrilled that she didn't know what to do with it. I mushed it up a bit and then she got the point and went to town.

When I walked back in the kitchen, the plate and floor were spotless. Looks like Alice is a fan of Bittersweet now, too!

Dear Alice...

I wanted to thank you for helping me with my laundry tonight.

Just moments before you dropped your dog bed top-down on top of my clean clothes, I'd been wishing Snuggle made a scuzzy, droolly dog bed-scented dryer sheet.

Besos,

The Human Female

The Piggy.

The Human Male became Alice's favorite yesterday when he bought her a little pink pig toy. Alice is in deep, deep love. She pulls on its tiny feet with a big smile on her face, and we've found it strategically placed in different areas of the house-- like smack dab in the walkway to the kitchen.

I worked from home today, so Alice sat in her usual spot-- in the chair next to the table where I work, on The Human Male's laundry.

Piggy joined her. She slept on him all day-- from 8A straight past 6P.

Do you ever have one of those times when you can't believe your luck that you get to live with something or someone so precious? I had that today.

Slacking off.

I've definitely not been paying enough attention to Alice's blog lately. It's mainly for one reason: I've been spending time with Alice on the couch. I'm not much of a sitter, but with the snow here, it's been hard to go out and do things, especially with Alice. So we've spent a lot of time sitting on the sofa together, mainly watching the Olympics. And ohhhh, has it been fun! I'm a total sucker for the Winter Olympics, and I'm pleased to say that Alice has become a fan of them as well. Or maybe she just likes having humans to sprawl out upon. I don't know. But I'd like to think that Alice has a little crush on Shaun White.

Soon enough I'll get back to posting with some regularity, but I think I might be lazy for a bit longer. There's still about a week left of the games-- women's ice skating hasn't even started! But until then, I got something terrific tonight and I wanted to share it with everyone.

I'm on a mailing list for people who have helped to find Berdina, the pit bull who ran away last April and is still wandering around Hyattsville, Maryland. Last week one of the searchers got a call from someone who came across who came across a pit bull who was living in a tree stump in the area. She was able to pick the dog up and take her home, and now she's looking for a forever home for her. Stumpy's foster mom is also investigating some local rescue programs as well, but she sent this flyer and asked if I could share it. Look at Stumpy's gorgeous face-- how could I say no?

Stumpy also has a blog: http://stumpyneedsahome.blogspot.com/. Please stop by and say hi!

If you or someone you know has a cute, spotted pit bull-shaped hole in their lives and live in a non-BSL area (which is why Stumpy's foster mom took her home-- Hyattsville is not pit bull friendly), please feel free to contact the information on the sheet. And if the picture's not expanding, I'd be happy to send the flyer over to you, too.

Let's help find Stumpy a home!

A special announcement from Alice.

Alice would like you all to know that The Human Male has baked bread.

No really. He did.

It's over there.

You see it?

Alice would like some bread, please.

Another day, another snowstorm...

Well, it's still snowing in DC. The buses remain cut, the train's back down, and the snow's now about six inches above our windowsill. Our neighborhood maintenance crew gave up on shovels and brought in three of those little diggers yesterday to plow everything.

Truthfully, I think I'd be more cheery if they'd just close my office and we could have a real snow day. Our clients have been out all week, and we got an e-mail today that our Philly branch is closed, but no such luck for us. So it's business as usual from the home office.

The response that people have had this week to the weather is weird. There are two main groups: those who think the world is ending and those who act like nothing's going on and drive at 60 mph on the highway, weaving in and out and talking on their cell phones. I'm beginning to think that the sensible people who know how to deal with snow are in the minority.

On the upside, we have a big pot of homemade soup cooking, and neither The Human Male nor I are considered "essential personnel". "Essential personnel" here is considered everyone from EMTs and Firefighters to the guy who stocks the onions at the grocery store.

Alice is handling the storm the best way she knows how: snuggling on The Human Male with a tennis ball.

That's one smart little pooch.

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:

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