Snow Day!

I cannot begin to describe how amusing it was to watch this dog experiencing her first snow day. Hazel, welcome to winter.

Flash Fall

What happened to fall this year? By the time I noticed the temperature start to drop and headed to the Catskills for some woodsy hiking and fall foliage photography, the leaves had already fallen.

Now that I'm getting around to posting the photos (just a few weeks later, truly!), we have already had our first snow of the winter and streets are bedecked with Christmas lights.

There wasn't nearly enough time to properly enjoy lightweight coats and tweedy skirts, pumpkin bread and mountains of apples and all other things that feel like fall. How did it manage to pass me by? Next year I must pay more attention.

Montauk

There is something special about visiting the beach in the off-season.


Perhaps it's the wide open vistas of windswept sand and bleached driftwood without a soul in sight.


The thrill of solitude after months spent in close quarters with millions of other New Yorkers.


And, of course, what can compare with the joy of feeling the wind in your hair and sand beneath your paws?

Puppy Love

A while back I posted about an expected new addition to our family. About a month ago Hazel finally joined us, and she has turned our lives completely upside-down. All the carpets have been temporarily rolled up, doggie barriers have been erected in strategic locations throughout the apartment, my nightly Law & Order fix has been replaced with The Dog Whisperer, and I've been getting up before 7 a.m.

In short, things are all topsy-turvy.

She is half golden retriever, half poodle. They call them golden-doodles. I wish I were kidding.

She is a clumsy, shoe-chewing, tail-wagging fuzzball.

But she turns those sweet brown eyes your way, and her puppy exuberance is so infectious, that playing fetch and getting drooled on suddenly seems like a perfectly thrilling way to pass an evening.

We named her Hazel after the lead character in Richard Adams' classic novel Watership Down, which Ash and I both read in the spring and loved.

(We initially thought of naming her "Fiver" for another character in the book, but that was rapidly shot down by a number of critics. I think the words "worst dog name in history" may have been mentioned. Suffice it to say we won't be sharing the names of our future children.)

But Hazel suits her, don't you think?

Welcome to the family, Hazel.