After a week of temperatures in the mid 60s to low 70s, I drove home yesterday into ever-deteriorating weather.  I was driving in rain for most of the second half of my drive–from south of San Antonio all the way home.  This morning there was ice on the truck and the door was hard to open due to icing.  As of now (about 12:30 Monday afternoon), there’s a thin coating of ice on the holly bushes and it continues to rain off and on.  The roads will likely be iced over before nightfall.  The weather forecast is talking possible snow tomorrow night.

In case you haven’t noticed, serious cold is relatively uncommon here in central Texas.  It freezes a couple of times per year, and every other year or so we get either snow or freezing rain that shuts down the city for a day or two.  But next week will be in the 60s again and we will have forgotten what little bit of winter we had.

Charlie is a big baby when it comes to cold.  He doesn’t like rain at any time, although he will go for a walk in the rain.  I guess some things are worth getting wet for.  In any event, we have a really tough time getting him to go outside in the cold.  He’ll ask to go out and then turn around and go back to his bed if he feels cold air when we open the door.  When he finally can’t hold it anymore and he must go outside, he steps right outside the door, does his business, and comes running back in like something’s chasing him.  For such a big and supposedly mean dog he really is a wuss when it comes to cold and rain.

This morning he did something I’ve never seen him do before.  He curled up in Tasha’s bed.  Understand, Tasha is a six pound poodle.  Sure, the bed is a bit larger than she is, but I never expected Charlie to get his 80 pounds of wimpiness into it.  But there he is, curled up in a much smaller space than I thought was possible for a dog his size.