You Knock Me Off My Feet, Baby!

Bree looked out the window at the snow which had fallen onto the grass in her small back yard. She figured there was almost a foot on the ground. Her neighbor's German Shepherd Benito was running around in his yard barking noisily as he chased snowball Mr. Gato threw for him.  The barking is what had drawn her from her desk to the window in the first place.

She'd been working on a flyer for Cupcake Cuties for the past two hours and was surprised to see that the snow had stopped. While Bree admitted to herself that the neighbor's snow covered Arborvitae and oak tree looked beautiful adorned with their blankets of white, she was no fan of snow. Harper and Poppi  were not fond of the snow either. As Basenjis, small hunting dogs originally from Africa, they would rather spend the winter lying next to a fireplace and dreaming of their homeland than face the white stuff.

Opening the side door Bree called, “Come on, Harper. Come on, Poppi! Time to go out!” Neither moved from their place on rug in front of the hearth.  “Okay, cowards, I’ll shovel a pathway for you, but then you are going out—like it or not,” she grumbled. Harper opened an eye to look disdainfully in her direction. Poppi continued to snore.

Bree grabbed her thick blue jacket and fuzzy black gloves. She slipped her favorite boots over her wool socks. They were leather with fake fur pompoms on the end of the laces and trim on the top. The matching faux fur hat went on over her long tightly curled black hair. Grabbing the shovel from the side porch, she started shoveling a path from the bottom step to the end of the fence line before clearing the sidewalk. The snow was heavy and each time she tossed a shovel full of it out of the way, an inch or more would stick to the bottom. By the time she was finished, her hands had gotten cold and wet through the gloves from trying to scrap off the layers of icy white, she’d slipped twice on the slick ground and she was cursing winter in general and snow in specific.

She stomped her boots on the concrete porch to knock off the snow coating the bottom of them, shook out her hat and went inside to get the dogs. “Time to go out, you two!” she yelled. “Let’s go!” she said staring down the dogs from across the room. Finally Harper got up. She was always the most obedient. Poppi was younger and more hard-headed about some things, but Bree glared at him until he too got up and went out the door.

She stood at the door encouraging them to “go potty.” Despite the path she had cleared, no amount of cajoling would get the dogs off the porch and into the lawn. Knowing the dogs had no shame about peeing on the carpet in the winter, Bree decided she would have to walk them. She saw that most of the neighbors had shoveled their sidewalks although packed snow stuck in many places.

Dogs’ leashes and sweaters in hand and plastic bags in her pocket, she closed the door behind her before the dogs could get back in the house. “Okay, you two, we’re going on a walk,” she told the shivering Basenjis as she put their fleece sweaters over their heads. “Time to get your precious little feet cold.”

Once the leashes were securely hooked on, she opened the front gate and stepped through with the dogs. She caught a glimpse of her Jason’s patrol car rounding the corner down the block. She hadn’t seen much of him since their disastrous date at Casinetti’s where she’d fallen off her heels and into the restaurant’s fountain.

Her mind wandering back to that night, she determinedly took off in the opposite direction with the dogs. She was directly in front of her neighbor’s house when two rabbits dashed up across the yard.  Both dogs bolted after the rabbits which unfortunately took off in two separate directions upon seeing the dogs. Bree held onto their leashes and tried to pull them back to her side, but her boots lost their grip on the packed snow under her feet. The dogs’ dash toward the rabbits dragged her around until she totally lost her footing and landed on her jean clad bottom in a snow pile.

Poppi continued to pull hoping to get a bite of rabbit for breakfast, but faithful Harper came rushing to her side to see if she was hurt. “You knock me off my feet,  baby,” Bree said giddily as she looked up into her concerned dark brown eyes.

“I’m glad to hear you admit that,” came from the other side of the snow pile where Jason was standing in his uniform and heavy police jacket. His car was parked behind him. “I’ve got two tickets to the annual Policemen’s Ball  at the station. Let’s make it a date. Maybe you should wear flats though,” he said as he reached out to help her up.