Winter Storm Warning

FRIDAY. To paraphrase Paul Revere, The snowflakes are coming! The snowflakes are coming! And the crowd (or in this case, Albuquerquians) roared with delight. Obviously we are not among them. The dogs do love it, though, and that gives me joy.

Telly (no, we still haven't given her a new name) continues to keep Murphy on his toes. Mostly he's happy to play with the puppy, but on occasion he'll offer a loud bark or growl which says, "Not now, kid." He's teaching me all about setting boundaries. Surprisingly, she takes his cues all in stride and shifts gears easily. She seems to settle fairly easily and understands correction.

One major difference between Murphy and Telly is their line of vision. Murphy never looks up. When I toss him a ball or Frisbee, he loses sight of it unless it's close to the ground. Telly, on the other hand, is constantly looking up. At night she stares at the stars and watches lights in the sky. She's fascinated with birds perched in trees and geese flying overhead. Murphy keeps his nose to the ground. I've tried to teach Murphy to look up, to no avail. He prefers to look straight ahead.

Snow will be here in a few hours, six to eight inches they say. One of our overly-animated TV weather anchors informed us last night to expect a "powerful" storm that will bring "a lot of snow" to New Mexico, all the while jumping up and down, waving his arms. I half expected him to wail like a banshee. Let the record show that six to eight is not a lot of snow. Fifty inches is a lot of snow (Norwood, MA, Blizzard of '78). Forty-eight inches is a lot of snow (Tamworth, NH, two back-to-back storms, April 2002). But not six to eight.

That said, I'm off to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies, just in case the predictions are off and we measure our new snow in feet, not inches.