It’s Snowing Inside

It was so cold inside our apartment today, Jennifer covered our oldest dog, Raster, with a fleece blanket. Already wearing a sweater, the arthritis-ridden six-year-old Schnauzer is so easily impacted by the cold that his first impulse, whenever we take him outside, is to freeze. In his tracks, that is.

It has been a cold winter in Milan, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in years. Though Europe as a whole has been experiencing record low temperatures, we’ve been unfortunate enough to have our building’s heat switched off a total of fourteen days in the last twelve weeks.

Unbelievable, isn’t it? There is something distinctly cruel about it. However, the owners of the roof, who decided to build an entire new floor above us (we live on the top floor) say that there’s no way around it. What’s worse is that they have no inclination to warn anyone. We find out when we get cold.

The heat was turned off last Friday. Eager to warm myself up, I decided to take a walk, and shoot some pictures of falling snow. One block way. I found the dog above, relieving himself in front of these election posters, urging Milanese to vote for the Lega Nord, Italy’s leading anti-immigrant party.