Snow! I just looked out the window to see blizzard conditions happening! The sky is that gun metal gray and the wind is whistling and the flakes are swirling all over the place....I LOVE it! I can't wait to get home and go for a walk, nothing gets the blood pumping like a walk in the cold. Poor Gypsy just hates it though, but luckily she has a new winter coat.

Speaking of Gypsy, she gave me such a fright last night, but let me backtrack a bit. She tends to eat a lot of grass, as dogs do, and now and then she "horks" ('cause that's the sound she makes) it up. Steven has only ever seen her do it once, so yesterday when I came home from work he was rather distraught that she had "horked" on the rug and he thought she was ill. The fact that she was running, leaping, smiling and generally carrying on as usual seemed to mean nothing to him and he refused to give her any of her "cookies" all day long.

Anyhow, I set his mind at ease, and after dinner we headed off to the hockey game, leaving her moping at the top of the stairs, telling her that dogs are just not welcome at the arena.

Fast forward to 3 hours later as we arrive home. Now, 99% of the time when we come home she is waiting at the front door, the other 1% of the time she jumps off the couch and races down the stairs to greet us. Last night we came in the house to silence. I called her name....nothing. I peeked in the living room in case she was really curled up and sleeping soundly...nothing. I ran down the hallway and checked bedroom #1, #2 and #3. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I started to fully panic, thinking awful thoughts that her "horking" was a sign of something else and I'm calling her name and yelling at Steven: "Where IS she?? Something is wrong!!" and running all over the house, looking outside in case she somehow got out and was on the sundeck. Adreneline was flowing full bore let me tell you.

Steven said: "The basement door is closed." which wasn't as odd a statement as it sounds since we usually leave it open. I pushed him aside and ran down there and opened the door, and there she is, my little beastie, almost hysterical with joy! She carried on as if she had been locked in a dungeon with no food or drink for days....she ran upstairs and drank a huge bowl of water, and proceeded to jump all over us and whined about the situation.

How she shut that door is beyond me, it does not close by itself, there is no furnace vent or anything to "blow" it shut, it opens against a wall so that it's not like she would be behind it and bump it closed. I don't know what she did, and I was just so happy to see her ok that I didn't think much of it. Until later that night, while we were in bed, and I wondered if someone had broken in the house and was hiding somehwere....hmmmm, either a bad guy who managed to lock her down there and was hiding upstairs to do dastardly things to us, or, as has happened once before, someone we know snuck in and Gypsy was happy to see them and thus went downstairs with them. And they were sleeping or something.

But it was 3 AM and I didn't relish finding a burgler, or coping with troubled acquaintances, Steven was sleeping the sleep of the non-caring, so I decided to join him in the land of Nod. I woke up alive this morning, so I guess I'll chalk it all up to "one of those things."

Maybe it was Revenge of the Devil Dog. Perhaps I shouldn't dress her up in anymore?