My little monkeys are weird.  They’ll happily be lazing in the backyard – one on the elevated bed, the other sprawled out on the porch – but all that changes when I step outside.  Belle jumps up, dances around for just a second, looks at me to make sure I’m watching, and then play attacks Bear.  And the show begins.   I’m not sure why my presence prompts a full episode of wrestlemania, but it does.

They play rough – Belle growls and barks and talks.  Both show their teeth as they lunge at each other’s throats.  It scared me at first – were they still playing or had it turned into a real fight?  Well, it’s never turned into a fight.  After a short cycle of ferociousness, they pause.  Belle swings a paw up on Bear’s back, her signal that it’s time to him to do a little grooming on her.  Bear happily complies.  Once Belle decides she’s back to looking fab, she usually ducks her head to try to grab one of Bear’s front legs.  And the games resume!

We actually have a similar game at night in front of the TV.  Bear lies all curled up, super sweet, next to me, when Belle realizes there hasn’t been a spotlight on her highness for entirely too long, a crisis that must be remedied immediately.  She marches up, and slowly walks back and forth, tail swishing (usually across my and Bear’s faces).  If that doesn’t work to sufficiently get Bear’s attention, she barks.  Then she resumes the swishing — bark, swish, bark, swish — until finally Bear hops up to groom her.  And then, once she decides he’s done, she wanders back to her chair or off to another room for another nap.

I never said they were right in the head.

The snow has already begun to melt, and the city is starting to turn into a puddle of slush (12 inches is a lot of precipitation!).  A lot of the city lost power (somehow I didn’t – I’m shocked but happy) and are still waiting to get it back.  There are trees down everywhere (we have a lot of very well-established, old, evergreen trees that just couldn’t take the weight of all that snow) – I lost half of one, and have another small one pretty much laying on its side (luckily, my ginormous pecan tree is deciduous and held up just fine).  But for probably another day, it’s like we’re living in an unexpected winter wonderland.

Belle, not surprisingly, has loved it.  I wasn’t sure how Bear would do as he doesn’t like to go out in the rain.  But, it turns out his DNA test may have actually been accurate, and he may have malamute in his blood – he’s also had a blast.  We’re all exhausted (and a little sore!), but hoping it’ll stick around just a little longer.

The dogs and I have had such a fun day playing in it (unfortunately, the Bear photos didn’t turn out because my glasses were so fogged up, I couldn’t even tell that I had accidentally switched the auto-focus off with my big old gloved fingers).

Belle did not want to come inside.

Bear seemed to enjoy it…

Licked the ground clean after he was done!

Happy Birthday to my Bear!