It’s been a week of gains and losses. Ups and downs.  Highs and lows.  You win some, you lose some.

Anymore, it’s not just the stock market that’s up one day and down the next – though the market has been pretty abysmal so far in this young year.

Gasoline is down again – just $1.77 a gallon, but even with low fuel prices, the airfare is sky high.

We lost a Supreme Court justice, but gained a lot of angst to pick a replacement for him.

We’ve also lost a few of the presidential candidates along the way, but one is feeling TRUMPhant, er triumphant, right about now.

We gained temperature degrees by leaps and bounds … it seems like a distant memory that we huddled inside the house last weekend enduring a mini polar vortex and this weekend it over 60 degrees higher.

Last Saturday we were swaddled in warm woolens and yesterday I saw people in tee-shirts and shorts.

And snow – what happened to the snow that got shoveled three times this week? Now you see it – now you don’t.

We shattered the previous record of 61 degrees on February 20^th set way back in 1930, when temps here in southeast Michigan soared to 63 degrees yesterday.

And, how many times did you discuss the high winds that ravaged our area over the weekend? Some 110,000 people lost power when winds gusted from 45 to 55 mph two days in a row.  Some of those poor folks still don’t have power.  I feel for them, as well as the lineman working in such treacherous winds.  We no doubt lost a few shingles along the way as well.

The new normal for weather is kind of scary sometimes. It’s been a decade since Al Gore first predicted global warming.  It’s becoming very real – just ask the polar bears who are becoming emaciated as they can’t go ice fishing anymore … the ice arrives later and leaves earlier.  I hear they find humans rather tasty though.

Also scary, was a close encounter of the canine variety which happened to me on this morning’s walk. She was just protecting her turf in an odd sort of way – her being “Scarlett with the scowl” … or, maybe “Scarlett with the growl” would be a better description.

I was walking along the cross street, mulling over some of the facts and figures and goings-on this past week or so that I mentioned above, and just minding my own beeswax, as that expression goes. All of a sudden I heard a low growl.  I quickly looked around and saw no dog.  I’ve taken great care to find another route far away from the meanies I mentioned in a blog post earlier this month.  But, as I continued to meander along that cross street, the growling intensified.  At that point, I wasn’t too worried because there was a tall vinyl privacy fence and the growl was coming from behind that big fence.

But … suddenly a face appeared at the bottom of that high fence, a face with a furry snout with a full set of teeth and a whole lotta attitude. I was quite taken aback and quickly calculated the distance from the bottom of the fence, and the grass, and whether or not this angry dog could wiggle out through an six or eight-inch space before I could make a run for it.  I must admit that my heart was pounding like mad.  Even in this rather compromising position, it didn’t stop that dog from barking its head off either.  It was a good thing that it barked though, because the owner came out and said “Scarlett honey … what are you barking at sweetie?”  Slowly, the sleek black head withdrew from that small space and I heard the screen door shut a few moments later.

I breathed a large sigh of relief once I knew I was safe.

Gulp.

“Scarlett” – I scoffed at that name and muttered to no one in particular as I left the scene. She was no demure Southern belle … to be sure.

So, weighing the plus or minus factor for my walk this morning: well, it was a plus that I got to walk, but a big minus that I lost a few years of my life thanks to Ms. Scarlett and her haughty demeanor.

Note to self: must scope out another route before tomorrow.

[Image “Plus or Minus” from Cyberscooty at openclipart.org]