Hey, it's Vlad. As many of you know I am currently residing in Southern California. We have something here called a Mediterranean Climate, which sounds kind of fancy and sophisticated but the reality is quite different. The Mediterranean climate means two things. Summers that, unless you live near the coast, actively try to kill you, and winters that are hopelessly confused and possibly drunk. Rain is illegal for at least six months of the year, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, the sky decides to make up for lost time by dumping an entire ocean on your head over the course of a single afternoon. This schizophrenic weather makes it difficult for us foxes to know whether we should be growing a bushy coat or shedding. Invariably, after a stretch of cool weather we put on our winter coats only to be hoodwinked by our so called winter... By noon it's 85 degrees and the sun is trying to roast our soul. Our full coats now feel like little fuzzy prisons. Of course if we decide to shed, winter will remember it's supposed to exist and turn us into vulpine popsicles.
The reason I'm mentioning this is we just had our first significant rainfall and I can't say I'm very happy about it. Normally people here are fairly pragmatic about the torrential rains. They say things like "I was sitting in my living room watching QVC when the rain soaked hill behind the house starting sliding towards me like a giant brown tsunami of doom. The next thing I know I'm standing in three feet of mud with my chipoodle Pepe hoisted above my head, wondering what the heck just happened...but we really needed the rain". I'm not nearly as accepting of this meteorological menace. The reason being, I work hard to look my best for our guests and when it rains like this I look like an extra large sewer rat. After the downpour I was making my way across my enclosure and had to wade through a large puddle. I overheard a small child say to their father,"that's a cute otter daddy"....quite humiliating.
In all honesty though, we really did need the rain.
Vlad out