Coldest Day Of The Year (So Far)

Got up early for a dog walk this morning, but actually Hiker and I could have stayed in the warm bed much longer. At 6 am when I let Hiker out to go potty, it was 22° here. Normally I would have crawled back under the covers when she came back inside, but we had our dog walk at 7:30. I decided to call my neighbor Jean and suggest we wait until around 8 am for the walk because there is frost and ice on everything and I didn’t want to fall while out walking. I’ve done that before. In fact, I think that’s how I hurt my knee years ago and it still hurts me now. Around 7:30, Jean called me back. She wanted to wait now until 8:30 for our walk. I agreed because it was still 22° and I didn’t want the dogs to freeze their little foot pads. The cold ground can hurt their feet as much as a hot ground in the summer time.

When we finally started out, it was 26°. The sprinklers had been running in the park, so everything was covered in ice and there was ice along the sidewalk. We had to be really careful to make sure we did not fall. Jean’s dog Charlie was slipping all over the ice. He could not get any traction.

It was too cold to sit on my patio and let the dogs play, so we skipped the play date today. I headed over to Stater Brothers to do my grocery shopping. I thought they’d be crowded since I got over there about an hour later than I normally do, but it wasn’t bad at all.

I have to get up early tomorrow morning and leave around 7:45 to head down to Panorama City Kaiser for my appointment with the contact lens optometrist. When I used to where contacts, they didn’t have “contact lens specialists” like they do now. Any optometrist could prescribe them. Keith is coming to start his visit tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be home no later than noon.