Hot time in the old town.

I keep thinking of March, when we were so buried in snow that junior dog Nipper and I were almost killed by a snowplow.

But it's not helping.

The hot, wet blanket that has slapped down on us the last couple of days reminds me of when we first brought Nipper home, in 2016. The nation was withering under the heat dome (remember that?) just when we had gotten this sweet little furball that had to go outside to pee 983 times a day. The weather, as I recall, stayed miserably hot unto the start of the Rio Olympics, about the time huge dog Tralfaz got an ear infection and DID NOT (!!!!!) (!!!!!) like the ear drops prescribed by the vet, which we had to administer twice a day.

Fun summer.

There's one similarity between a hot summer and a hard winter, at least in these air conditioned times: You feel a bit trapped inside. You know the moment you go out, you'll wince.

In the so-called dog days you want to run to the car, crank the A/C, run from wherever the car gets you to, to go inside somewhere where you hope the A/C is also cranking.

🌞hi

😥blarg

The main difference to me now between summer and winter is that winter very nearly cannot be too cold for my hairy dogs. These guys are built for the cold. The summer can really kill 'em, though, so we have to be careful. Tralfaz is at an age where he mostly avoids the heat, but Nipper is always game for outdoors fun. When the weather is really hot we wind up with bored, under-exercised dogs, who can be as annoying as bored children. As I write this my wife is running them through some training exercises, which is always useful but also wears them out.

Yesterday after work I took Nipper in the car (A/C crankin') to PetSmart, to get some supplies. Mainly I wanted to give him someplace cool to go. They all love him there, or at least they pretend convincingly -- and really, he's a smiley, cheerful fellow, so why wouldn't they? -- which makes for a fun trip for him. I even ran into a couple of folks I know, so he got extra love. Then he came home and crashed in the hall. Score one for Daddy!

🐶blarg

When I was kid we had no central air, and we couldn't use the window units except at night. Energy was exceedingly pricey at the time; you fellow fogies know what I mean. Dad's rules were ironclad on that. So when it was brutally hot we just died all day, or went into the cellar.

I spent a lot of summer days in cool cellars when I was a kid. That's why I'm the salt of the earth. (Yes, a British joke, and a very old one, thank you.) I think my time in cool cellars, ours and my friends', is the only reason I am not one huge melanoma at this age, because when I did go out in the sun I tended to burn like diner bacon. But I didn't smell as good.

Every season has its issues, its joys, but I wish we had more spring and fall and less of the weather that actually can murder us, and our little dogs too. If the Miser Brothers had had a couple of other brothers, the year might be more pleasant, wherever you lived. Spring Miser? Pleasant Warmth Miser? Leaf Miser? Cool Miser? That would be nice.