I knew it was going to be a cold walk this morning, but I was committed. I have a warm winter coat. I have a hat. I have mittens. I could do this. So, after Xtend Barre, I pulled on a special thermal shirt and my winter coat. I laced up my walking shoes and then I put Josephine’s walking harness on her. She gets so crazy excited about these walks every morning. She starts hopping up and down when she sees me putting my shoes on and the minute I buckle her harness, she takes off for the door. I always stop by Michael’s door and tell him we’re leaving because that’s his signal to get out of bed. This morning, as I walked to the front door, I could see the car parked on the curb in front of our house was covered in snow. I groaned and said to no one, but maybe Josephine “there’s snow on the ground!” but I still opened the door and stepped out into it.

Because Josephine was already in her walking harness. These walks and pooping in four very different places is her favorite thing. I couldn’t turn back now.

As we walked up the street, I could feel wet snow hitting my face. I thought about taking a shorter walk. We made it to the park and we were about halfway around the trail when we saw one of the women we usually see walking there in the mornings. We both smiled and said ‘good morning’ to each other as we passed. Josephine and I kept on walking. I looked up at one point and the snow in the trail lights looked like glitter falling from the sky. I realized I was smiling and then I was all “Wait…am I happy?!?” Everything from my knees down was cold. My toes were starting go numb. We had to stop twice to remove clumps of snow from the bottom of Josephine’s feet so she could walk (she’s going to need her own set of snow booties if we keep this up). Yet here I was almost giggling as we walked in the falling snow. I thought it had more to do with me accomplishing this walk despite my least favorite weather conditions, but every time I have looked out the window today, I have almost started laughing. It looks like a shook up snow globe out there. There is accumulating snow on the ground.

And I am not mad about it.

I mean, I’m not thrilled. Snow before Halloween is lulu crazy pants, particularly when you grew up in a place where you rarely had to wear a jacket or coat to go trick-or-treating. Except I hear that Oklahoma is getting ice and sleet today, which is unusual for this time of year. I don’t know why I am finding the snow to be so joyful today. Maybe I’m having a manic episode. Who knows? Last year, when we visited Heather in Denver for Thanksgiving, we walked almost everywhere we went. We walked the dogs to the park. We walked to the liquor store and the dispensary. We walked to restaurants and pilates class. There were multiple feets of snow on the ground. On our last evening, we were walking back from a lovely dinner. The snow started to come down really hard. We all just tucked our chins and kept on walking. At one point we stopped for a light to change so we could cross the street. I looked up at Michael and his beard was coated in snow. It was like he’d had a misfortunate interaction with some beignets. His beard was completely white. Of course I took a picture and then we laughed and laughed at it. I have been thinking about that moment off and on today. Michael has much less of a beard now because of his mask. He trimmed it short. That day last year though, I got a glimpse of what he might look like as Santa. I have retirement goals and one of those is the two of us working as Mr. and Mrs. Claus during the holidays. I am obsessed. Every time I see a plain clothes man with a Santa beard, I point at him say “Santa!”. Like I’m a four year old. It has nothing to do with Christmas and decorations, but everything to do with the joy of spotting Santa off duty.

It feels really weird and good to not be a frowning grumbling mess about what is happening outside my window right now.