Bradica (the dog) has developed a new habit that had to be changed. She absolutely hates getting her feet wet. She decidedly doesn’t like snow. She also doesn’t really like walking on grass! Last week we received some very wet snow. It wasn’t a lot, perhaps four inches. During the storm she discovered that there wasn’t any snow under the deck! So when we’d let her out to do her “business”, she promptly headed under the deck and made her deposits. “Do something about it” was my instruction from Nina. So, off to Home Depot I went to see about fixing the problem.

My first thought was to buy some lattice and nail it up to the right and left of the stairs. However, there was no lattice to be found at Home Depot. That’s obviously a summer item and we are no longer enjoying summer. Finally I settled on putting up some wire fencing which I could attach underneath the deck and it wouldn’t be all that noticeable. Then, of course, I needed staples to attach the wire mesh. I know I’ve got a staple gun somewhere, but I could spend a couple of days looking and still not find it. The solution was a new tool: an electric staple gun! So I came out of Home Depot with about $80 worth of stuff to block off the way under the deck to the right and left of the stairs. Bradica dislikes the snow enough that she won’t go any further than that, so I don’t need to block off the long part of the deck. What’s a Saturday without a trip to Home Depot, anyway?

I made up a shopping list before leaving. The list had several items on it:

• Shoe polish for my cordovan shoes
• Lattice
• Stuff to attach the lattice
• Snow shovel (for the back deck because the other shovel is always in the garage)
• Gas for the Toyota
• Music for The Messiah
• Windshield washer fluid with de-icer
• Windshield ice scraper

I made it back home with everything except the snow shovel. Even with a list I still forgot something! Tomorrow night is the annual Messiah sing-in at the Pocatello East Stake Center. I knew where my score was, but Nina wasn’t about ready to plow through boxes in the basement to find her score. She suggested that I stop at the used book store downtown and see if they had any music. I would never have thought of checking here, and viola, they did indeed have a copy. This book store is quite amazing and very eclectic. Books are piled everywhere, but the proprietor knows where everything is! There isn’t much rhyme or reason to how things are organized in the store making browsing in the store a lot of fun. So, we now have three scores to Handel’s Messiah but only one snow shovel. I’m sure that’ll require another trip to Home Depot.