Senior Family Analyst Adelaide

Adelaide Macaroni Padgett is a puppy, specializing in sleep and play. She is author of The Perils of White Puppies in New England and Growling at Windmills. Her series for this blog, "From the Floor," strives to provide a commonplace-if not subaltern-view of newsworthy events.

Pembroke, NH--Let me tell you about life in my neighborhood. It's winter right now, so their are far fewer motorcycles shaking our street with their noise so that they can "enjoy the nature." In their place, we have have the guy that likes to scrape every single piece of ice from his driveway either late at night or early in the morning. There's also a guy that appears in a bright pink truck to gas up our house once a month. I give him a really hard time.

I've got two furry neighbors. Katie lives across the street. She's hip and always excited to see me. Sam is the bulldog next door. I actually haven't met him yet, but I see him come and go. He looks pretty nice, but I'm positive that I can outrun him. There are actually ten more dogs at the other house across the street. The city doesn't know about those dogs ($6 annual fee per dog), so I won't reveal their identities here.

My house has a backyard where I chase tennis balls. For a small puppy, the yard is huge. Our road has a loop where we take some walks. Other dogs leave messages along the path. I leave some messages of my own. I also enjoy several of the local parks and the state park hiking paths, where I am allowed as long as I am leashed. The other field trip we occasionally make is to the "Exchange." We load up a bunch of junk that we don't need (like boxes) and hike down to Suncook Village. This moustached guy in a yellow shirt looks at us like we don't belong and points to the biggest box I've ever seen. We put our boxes in that box. Though we call it an exchange, we don't really get anything back for our boxes. Except maybe for that funny look from the yellow-shirted gentleman.

For now, I've got to stay inside. It's cold outside, and there is snow everywhere. I can't wait for warmer weather--though I remember that bringing on the slush, the mud, and the blackflies. It doesn't matter; some of my favorite times are when we have visitors come and visit. We've had several people over this month, and the calendar reveals that several more are on their way (including my fellow curly-haired friend Wendy).