NO TRIP FOR YOU!!!

It's frigid outside.  FRIGID!  As you may have gathered, I'm not a fan of cold weather, but this is absurd.  This is beyond cold.  This is Mother Nature farting in our faces.  She can be a very nasty mother and these past few weeks have proven that.  We were supposed to make an escape to warm, sunny southern California to see the daughter and son in law this weekend.  Guess who's still under the weather?  Graham.  Graham doesn't want us to leave him in Mother Nature's freezer, so he decided to continue coughing so we wouldn't leave.  Also, the vet said the stress on leaving him in his hour of need would further complicate matters - something we don't need.  And because he's a Standard Poodle with a tremendous sense of humor, if we left him in his hour of need, he would probably eat all our shoes, raid the pantry, and maybe even steal the car.  Poodles do things like that.  They're like bad teenagers.  Neither do I want to upset the balance of his recovery.  His recovery has been a very delicate path to negotiate, and I need him to stay on that path.  So I'm happy to stay stuck inside my house in frozen Charlottesville.   That's another lie I'm telling.  I really wanted to go to LA.  I love that place.  After the daughter moved there and before we visited, friends kept telling us we would hate it.  Too big, too crazy, too much traffic, too whatever.  I love it.  Yes, it's big and crazy and traffic heavy, but the tradeoff's are fabulous.  The lovely year round weather, the flowers that grow as big as dinner plates, the fantastic people watching, the airplanes overhead.  I bet you didn't know the huzbin and I are airplane spotters.  Yep, we're the freaks identifying airplanes.  Back in the old days, before 9/11, you could sit at the end of runways and watch them fly over your head.  If you're from my home town, did you ever lay on the end of the runway and watch the planes come in?  We must have been out of our minds.  At least the huzbin and I sit NEAR the ends of runways, not on them.  We now have to park a good distance away from the runways.  However, we're quite lucky that we have kids living in large metro areas with large airports that allow us to see fantastic airplanes while we sit in the comfort of a yard or back porch.  We spot when we drive or while we're taking walks.  We're very good at stopping what we're doing to look up and identify the airplane going over.  The son in law mocks us.  The daughter rolls her eyes.  The son pretends he doesn't know us.  The daughter in law thinks we're nuts.  But the grandchild??  He loves airplanes!!!  And he loves to have his mommy and daddy take him to the airport to watch the airplanes!  Could this be genetic?  A freak "watch the airplane" gene??  Actually, I'm feeling the pull right now.  Time to get the binoculars and hit the window. I'm leaving you with a doodle painting.  This is what I do when I'm lying talking to my mother.