In this household, the scene is set for breakfast when the morning newspapers are set beside our plates,  with two little dogs hovering below the table, beside our chairs, preparing to hoover up anything that falls -- or that Irving slips to them surreptitiously with the naive impression that my eagle eyes haven't spotted the transfer because I've given up chiding him.

 

Both the puppies and the newspapers are often good for a laugh. Jillie is the more persistent of the two; if no one 'notices' her hanging around, or Irving finally feels he's sacrificed enough of his breakfast for her, she seems to feel that if she can't enjoy any more breakfast, we shouldn't either, and she repeatedly slips over to the sliding doors to be let out onto the patio.

 

They've been doing that quite a bit lately. They're not 'outside' pups, they prefer to go out only if they must. Otherwise it's the sofa and love seat, thank you very much. But the last few days have been clones of spring with mild temperatures, no wind, and blue skies as far as we can see toward the horizon. Our backyard, because of the way it faces, has a microclimate; it tends to be much warmer than anywhere else outside. So when it's mild like this the backyard feels balmy, full sun warming everything up.

 

So Jackie and Jillie like to go out on the deck and enjoy the sun. Jillie, more than Jackie, but he doesn't want to miss out on anything if his sister is doing something. Which brings me back to the newspapers. Today had its share of chuckles, reminding us of just how lopsided peoples' mental faculties can be. There was one story out of Hannover in Germany about a ballet director who had taken umbrage at a less-than-stellar review of one of his group's performances. He  let the critic know just how outraged he was at her comments by smearing animal feces on her face. One can only hope she's in hot pursuit of suing him in criminal court.

 

Ah, and this one; our confidence in our world leaders seems not to be have been displaced. American President Joe Biden's White House is advising its public that there are 'no indications' of an alien presence to explain those mysterious 'balloons' being shot down over North America. "I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no, again no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns", assured White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

 

We both breathed a huge sigh of relief, and wondered why China's President Xi Jinping even bothered to refute U.S. Intelligence's suspicions of the balloons shot down being part of a surveillance mission globally, associated with the People's Liberation Army, by poutingly pointing out that Beijing was itself outraged having discovered ten American balloons hovering high in China's airspace, spying.

We had the jollies after that, and finally decided to get ourselves sober by heading out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie on a sublimely gorgeous spring day, even if we're a long way from spring and the weather is just pretending, but doing a very presentable show of spring's longed-for arrival. The creek in the ravine is swollen with snow-melt.

 

It cannot yet be noticed that the snowpack has diminished, but it obviously is beginning to. There's a lot to go. And it won't, yet. We'll have another day of this mild weather than cold will return. Or not. Meanwhile, we're enjoying the break from the cold and from the need to shovel snow.