Meet Pajama Dog. He never complains about the weather.
Cold is not my favorite thing. I'm a warm weather girl. Less layers of clothing is better, not that I'm a nudist. But close. Last week in the dog park, this cool dog was wearing a full body suit. I stood nearby shivering, teeth chattering, silent complaints running across my forehead while Pajama Dog looked toasty, stylish and happy. I felt like a winter wimp. Okay, the kind of cold that frosts the windshield and hurts your butt on the car seat isn't serious cold.
This is some SERIOUS COLD, dudes.
That is my daughter Joanna and me jumping for JOY at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in January 2014. I was glad to be at the top mostly because we were ascending back down to sweater weather 5 minutes after that picture was snapped. 8 days to ascend to 19,341 feet. And a few hours to slide down the scree and run down the snowy dirt trails to sweater weather. Let me just say for the record....the last 4 nights of the ascent were COOOOLLLLDDD!
That's me in the boots standing next to my sherpa friend, Adnan. He met me everyday after the climb up, smiled with his perfect teeth and took my pack. He made his shoes out of old tire treads. They look cool, right? But not too toasty.
At the end of the trip many pieces of gear including boots, jackets, gloves and hats were gifted to the sherpas by us spoiled little American climbers. It was pretty heartbreaking and ridiculous and felt like too little too late. I try to keep Adnan's tire tread sandals and gloveless hands in mind when I'm shivering at the dog park or scraping the frost off the windshield of my car BEFORE I open my spoiled little mouth to complain about the cold. You know what I mean?