I think I've discovered a natural alternative to Icy Hot for the groin area.

Several snowball colonies, in fact. I’ve never seen communities get built so quickly. And talk about rapid community expansion… it doesn’t take long before Ella can barely walk due to snowball overcrowding.

I feel like I'm waddling. Can you tell that I'm waddling?

There’s something really demonic and parasitic about this snow.

Hey, what's in these balls? I'm startin' to feel pretty good!

Don’t even bother to give one  of those balls a tug because it won’t do any good. It’s not coming off. And when you get home, you’ll spend 45 minutes pouring hot water all over them to try to get them to melt – to no avail. All-weather balls of steel, I’m telling you.

There have been times I looked up at Ella and gasped, “My God! the balls are overtaking her!”

The snow says I'm the chosen one, mommy.

Mommy? Is that you? Everything's going white.

My theory is that, after years of getting pissed on, the snow has decided it’s had enough. Somewhere in Central Park, there’s a rally headed up by a few yellow snowman, inciting the other flakes to ban together to get to the dogs before the dogs get to them.

I suspect the yellow and otherwise, ahem, soiled ringleaders are also responsible for the evil hidden messages we discovered that had been left on the trees. Like this one, for example:

Riddle me piss.

The interpretation on that one isn’t entirely clear. This next one is more straight forward:

To be clear, the yellow snow is mad.

Watch out for the balls, that’s all I’m saying. In fact, you might want to get your dog a bodysuit for protection.

This suit of armor looks pretty menacing, too (c/o dvice.com). It might work.

Protect your dog against unwanted snowball colonization with this suit of armor

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You have no idea how much she wishes she could have played the role of the dog in Kate & Leopold…and not just because she’d have gotten to work alongside the talented and charming Hugh Jackman. She’s got more depth than that – or at least she thinks she’s got the acting chops to convince you she does

And who wasn’t affected by that scene in Woody Allen’s Manhattan (forward to 5:50) when Isaac (Woody Allen) and Mary (Diane Keaton) sit chatting on a bench along the East River, staring in the distance at the dimly lit 59th Street Bridge in the wee hours before dawn. See, here again…a dachshund? Granted Diane Keaton’s character could not easily have carried Ella into the diner while waiting for her food, but I’m sure Woody could have written some sort of alternate scene to accommodate her.

In any case, Ella was feeling nostalgic and convinced me to grab my camera and head down the East River Walk where we both got our 59th Street Bridge fix and Ella got a couple more shots for her portfolio.

"I'm in black and white. Aren't I artsy?"

"The only risk you run in casting me...and I say this humbly...is that I may upstage my surroundings."

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I’d love to be able to take credit for building this big hunk of a snowman, but I don’t have the cold tolerance and step ladder necessary to pull it off. I don’t know who built him, but a passerby told me that somebody on the block reincarnates him every year. I don’t know how I’ve never managed to see him before this year. He’s kinda hard to miss, let’s face it. His abs and bulging biceps did not impress Ella, however. Apparently she takes after her mom because I have never gone for the beefcake type either. She agreed to pose for a photo if I handed over my glove. Nothing for free in this world, I tell you.

"Your abs can't compete with the faux leather in my mouth."

Aren't my eyebrows manly?

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But, never fear because Ella has convinced her furmother that she should really stop being such a control freak and learn to delegate. And so, I have acquiesced and given Ella a promotion. As if Ella didn’t run things ’round here before, now she does it “officially”. Here she is, hard at work laying out the editorial calendar for the blog for the next month. Just look how handy she is with a sharpie.

So, if I were you, I’d stay tuned because she’s likely got some pretty great stuff planned. If there’s one thing Ella knows, it’s how to entertain.

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Ella and I took a sunset walk around The Reservoir, and here are some of the winning shots from the evening… (click on the photos to enlarge them)

Purchase this print

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To that end, Ella freestyles recklessly in this clip, catching a case of the zoomies/puppy runs/crazies or whatever expression you use to describe the nutty spazzfest dogs sometimes have that causes them to run around in circles through the house. Talk about a bull in a china closet -- she ran into me, almost took out my Macbook Pro by running through the cord (NOT THE MAC!), but worst of all, she jumped up on Grandfurma’s sofa. And none of us -- least of which was Grandfurpa who took to yelling at Ella at that point in the hopes she’d come down off her high and the sofa -- wanted to deal with the wrath of Grandfurma if something happened to the couch.

She wasn’t home when this happened and has never before seen this footage.

She’ll have a fit.

I must admit I’m rather enjoying it. Now. After the fact. Safe and sound in New York away from the Grandfurparent residence.

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Enjoy.

(the images are kind of small here-click on any of the pictures or go here to view them in full screen)

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Meet Kasey

Ella was sidling up to Kasey and relentlessly instigating play fights from the second poor Kasey set paw in the house. Although Kasey has calmed down a lot over the last year or two, she was just as devilish as Ella as a puppy and pretty quickly rediscovered the imp within.

Thank goodness my mom was so preoccupied with a busy last week of teaching and retirement parties that she wasn’t around for a lot of their mischief. In the end, nothing was broken and there were no carpet stains that couldn’t be treated, but I’m not going to say there weren’t some close calls. One of my mother’s friends who roasted her at a retirement gathering that week characterized my mom in this way: “She is not satisfied with the cleanliness of her house unless there are visible vacuum lines on the carpet”. That is the truest statement ever uttered. So you can imagine what my mom thought when she saw the vacuum lines replaced with paw prints.

Here they are in the dining room -- watch out for the crystal!

And here they are in the living room -- which shouldn’t be called a living room because ordinarily no one sets foot -- let alone lives - in it.

And finally, here’s “Ella and Kasey -- Round 1″. My favorite part is the butt sniff at the end of the round…Dogs will be dogs…

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Anyway, I realized pretty quickly that I left the apartment without my wallet which is pretty typical. I usually forget something -- cell phone, Ella’s ball, etc -- and frankly I’d rather forget my wallet than poop bags which I have done before and was forced to come up with some very creative clean up solutions which won’t be discussed here. Anyway, priorities in line, I did remember my camera, so I decided to try to discreetly get a few pics of her from afar. The Ballerina Mime may have done a lift combo without the cash (how far does “pretty please” get you these days?), but my morals told me it was better to steal a photo from afar instead.

I found out when I got home that apparently the Ballerina Mime is pretty well known in these parts. Her name is Therisa Barber, and she’s a classically trained dancer who moved from England to New York City hoping to make it on Broadway. You can read a really nice bio of Therisa here, and here’s a short clip of her in action:

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