THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 14, 1995 TAG: 9502140274
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Snowstorms, because we're lapped by warming waters, usually miss us on coastal Virginia.
The other day, despite predictions of two cold fronts joining forces out of Canada, we came through almost unscathed.
Oh, next morning there was a dusting of snow, just a kiss, and a quick kiss at that.
A kiss blown off the fingertips in passing.
Little more than a flirtatious gesture. Done with a flip of the wrist and a shy glance.
Yet it sufficed to turn white the field across the way. A newly pressed white sheet pulled skin-tight.
But so scant, so thin that the snowscape stood to offer little in the way of enchantment, I thought, gazing through the large sunroom window at the white expanse beyond the road.
And at that precise moment a miracle, albeit a minor one, occurred.
Onto the far side of the field a young Dalmatian, still in puppyhood, came dancing, delighted, to investigate her first snow.
Her name is Jazz.
We have only a nodding acquaintance; we have yet to be formally introduced.
But I have admired, and confessed as much to her, her marble white coat, flecked haphazardly with two dozen vari-sized black dots, as if thrown by a painter from his brush.
A smudge over her right eye, as if it were daubed with black mascara, gives her a somewhat roguish air.
Lithe, limber, leaping around with about as much forethought as a leaf in the wind, she twisted, turned, circled in figure-eights, made quick dashes.
A ballet solo in the snow.
And, as I watched, the marble coat of the Dalmatian blended with the white, tight-stretched canvas, and there were only moving patterns of black spots cavorting before my eyes on the snow.
I felt a presence in the room. Glanced down. The chocolate Labrador retriever - a late riser after a long night - had joined me.
He stood at the huge window's sill, only a foot or two from the floor, dark head riveted on the scene in the snow.
Eyes intent, his ears thrust forward, his tail wagged slowly as he watched the dancer in the snow.
He looked up, barked.
I opened the front door, he cleared in a leap the four steps and shot, a swift dark arrow, through the yard and onto field.
She, pausing, watched him approach, flying, and as he neared her, joined him flank to flank, white and dark brown, and they raced side by side across the canvas-tight white field.
Yes, it sufficed. ILLUSTRATION: Jazz, a young Dalmatian, delighted in last week's snow.
by CNB