Last Thursday and Friday in Chicago were extremely cold; about -25 C or single-digit temperatures on the Farenheit Scale. Unbearable! I'm tough but, Mommy is NOT!
I'll tell you here how my winters have been since I moved to Chicago. They've been about the same; only now we are more "prepared".
Snow is soooo beautiful but, reeeeally messy. I love it, Mama does NOT! I loooove digging myself in the fluffy snow, sniffing around, jumping like a rabbit. Mama however... is not happy at all. She has to put on her ski outfit otherwise, she would never be able to stay outside any longer than 2 blocks in this bitterly, brrrrrrutally cold weather. That means I have to do my business in 2 blocks and be back inside so Mama doesn't lose her fingers... or her nose, or her ears... She looks like an astronaut with that silly outfit on and I look cool in my brown coat.
Mama thinks the coat is not enough so she makes me wear this red "suit" underneath it.
I know the coat doesn't go with my red suit, which is actually red pajamas I put on to try and keep my legs dry.
Before finding my red shoes Mama made several attempts to protect my feet from the rock salt on the streets and sidewalks. None of them worked :(
Mama tried grocery plastic bags, cling film, and she even sewed up a whole winter outfit to:
1. prevent my feet from getting hurt in the salt and
2. to keep me dry so she wouldn't need to blow dry me when I got home.
ALL in vain!!!
One day Mama reached her breaking point and decided to take matters into her own hands!
One thing that made Mama decide to sew up pieces of her own clothes to make my suit, was the day that I refused to cross the street when the light turned green for us pedestrians, because my foot hurt and she had to carry me and a car almost hit both of us. She says all this happened because of "this freaking snow" as she calls it.
She used to watch Project Runway at that time, and got inspired by all those contestants' creations so, as soon as she got home she started working on her "project" and came up with something like this:
Mama,thank God you were NOT one of the contestants because I know exactly what Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and Heidi Klum would have said about this outfit... OMG I can picture Heidi "Auf Wiedersehening" you...
This ERRR "wonderful" outfit initially had some shoes attached to the trousers and the soles were made from foam cup holders she destroyed. Well... gone are the cup holders...
I'm modeling this, only because you made it Mama...
Then, we went downstairs to go for a walk and of course I refused to go out looking like a clown... Just walked 2 steps and Mama couldn't pull me any further.
Mama got reaaaaaally pissed off at me.
She cut off the "attached shoes" and started looking for some shoes I would walk in comfortably and all I know is, before we finally got my red shoes Mama looked non-stop everywhere in stores and online and actually ordered several kinds of shoes for me to try on. Sorry about those frustrating, painful returns Mama.
I'm happy we went to that one store together and tried my red shoes on. They were comfortable and... We got them YAY!
I thought she'd be happy but, she also wanted me to wear something like pants so I wouldn't get wet and she wouldn't need to blow dry me. So, she started a relentless search for the perfect snowproof outfit. Then, she came across a "showerproof" trouser suit from the UK on Ebay made of nylon and bought it for me. When we finally got the suit in the mail, I tried it on and...OH NO... way tooooo BIG!:(:(:(
I looked like a red baloon and of course I refused to wear it, thus I made Mama very upset and disappointed. Since she thought it was a hassle to return the suit to the UK, she kept it and took it to the alterations shop and struggled to explain by gestures to the the owner, a Korean lady who barely speaks English, that she needed to adjust the suit for her new 4-legged customer: Guess who! She got kinda startled with the idea and charged Mama exactly what she paid for the original suit. She said: 35 dollar, make new one! Mama haggled : $25... please... :) Then the lady said : OK, pick up next week!
The lady said it would take her one week to do it. One week later we picked up my new suit. And then I tried it on... OH NO...not good enough!!!! Back to the shop to readjust it and when I tried it on again...OH NO...still not good!!!! Mama gave up!
So now, I just stick to my PJ's which are not very warm but, they're very comfy and somehow help keep my legs dry. I also wear my brown coat Grandma J gave me, my red shoes, my socks now (last winter I didn't have them), my scarf and I'm all set! When it's freezing cold like last THU and FRI, Mama also puts a sweater on me between my PJ's and my coat, so I have an extra layer.
This winter I'm much less of a "Cinderella"( Mama calls me "Cinderello")because with my socks on, my shoes stay put longer. Last year, I lost my shoes so many times. Luckily, we always found them later.
My dirty socks...
This week the temperatures are quite "decent". -5C or about 20F is normal for Chicago. I hope we won't have those subzero wind chills again so I can have longer walks.
Stay warm peeps! We're trying our best here... BRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
