That was us.

It snowed last night. Just the lightest of dustings, less than half an inch, but for about half an hour it was coming down so steadily that I winced. We've had a lot of snow this season, and it's our first year in the house. We're still getting used to things like how our street stays icy and slick well after the main roads in town are clear and dry.

Anyway…it was snowing, but it was midnight, time for the last W of the evening. We've gotten Oz used to a regular routine of W's, and skipping one always feels wrong, like we're cheating her. So I got my hat, coat, shoes, poop bag, and leash.

Oz was asleep, so I jangled the leash against the floor and up she popped, rumbling up the stairs like she hadn't just been snoring. Click leash, out the door…

And it was snowing. Enough snow was falling to make a kind of curtain that blurred the lights from nearby houses and softened the edges of everything. Within a few steps Oz's chocolate brown fur was sprinkled with what flakes.

There were no tracks on the road. There were no foot prints. There were no paw prints. We took care of that. Weaving back and forth across the street to follow great smells (I assume), whims (I'm sure), and particularly interesting gusts of snow (I know), we had a nice little ten minute W.

We've been down this road literally a thousand times, but the snow makes everything new again. All those leaves become mysterious humps of who knows what? The branches bend and clump together as the snow settling in, and the snow thickens their shadows, so what were some pretty ratty scrub bushes become rounded, lurking shapes. I know they won't leap on us, and I'm pretty sure Oz knows. But just to be sure…

We had the road to ourselves last night. No people, no dogs, no cars. Well, one small bird, dislodging puffs of snow for a late night snack. Other than that, it was us.

So if you're driving to work and you see a winding set of paw prints and a sort of penguin set of people tracks, and nothing else on the pure white snow, that was us.

Greg