Where is the “warming” in global warming?

Holy Cow is it cold. 

This morning I went to let the Idiot Dog out and my first clue to the temperature should have been that I could barely get the back door open.  It was frozen shut.  Seriously! My back yard faces west so it doesn’t get the sun until noonish.  I finally wrenched it open and Roscoe blithely trotted out the door and WHOOOOSH all four legs went a different direction and he took a header on the brick path.  He looked like Bambi on the ice pond. 

He got up and sniffed the path and looked at me, bemused.  He also found the crunchy grass an unlikely oddity.  I pried his dog dish off the patio and ran back inside to fill it.  I came back and he was standing in the grass at the exact same spot I left him, staring at the door with a look of mild concern on his fuzzy face.

I deposited his food and slammed the door.  It’ll warm up.  He has hair.  This is what I told myself.

The kids and I went back to scrambling for school.  It was only a few minutes before he started up.

“Ah-ooooooooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnne,” he managed to combine a howl into a mournful whine.  It was a potent combination of misery and woe that could not be denied.

I shut the doors to the kid’s rooms so he couldn’t steal their toys and tucked the kitchen garbage into the pantry.  When I opened the back door he burst through in a flurry of ears and spindly legs and frost bite.

We all went off to school and work and I just prayed I’d have a couch left when I got home.

At lunch I ran home to let him out.  I figured it was warm enough for him to go out by now.  Not warm enough for me, mind you, but he’s covered with hair.  He roused himself lazily when I came through the door.  He was warm and sleepy and looked quite happy.

“Come on. Let’s go outside!” I sang with great enthusiasm.  I am often guilty of anthropomorphism, but I swear to you, that dog shook his head at me and gave me a look that said, “Yeah, I’m not going out there, lady.”

“Come on!” My voice raised another thrilling octave and I clapped my hands together.  His eyebrows told me, “nuh-uh.”  He wouldn’t even go out to pee even though I promised him I’d let him back in.  He simply turned around and went back to sleep.

I let him stay in because the only evidence I found of mischief was a half a loaf of bread shoved in the couch cushions.  And it really was VERY cold outside.

Here is the proof of the cold.  These are pictures of the fountain in the courtyard at my office.  These pictures were taken at 3:45 in the afternoon.  These are serious icicles, people, even in the middle of the day.