Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Life's Mysteries

Just at noon today, I happened to be driving past Mike's office and decided to ask if he wanted to take a walk with me. 

In 'True Lies' the husband shows up to take his wife out for lunch and she's off having an illicit lunch with a would-be lover.  Well, that didn't happen.

Instead, I picked Mike up and we headed down to Marymoor to let Teddy run.  That may be the nicest off leash dog park in the world.  The dogs there are so happy and Teddy quickly found a new best friend, a brindled pit bull.  Does he know how much we love those dogs or is it just chance that he almost always plays with one when he's free to choose?  Life is full of little mysteries, isn't it?

Most of the dogs were soaking wet when they came over to Mike and I to get petted.  Here's another of life's mysteries - though they greeted me, three of these dogs leaned against Mike's tan dress pants instead of my blue jeans.  Oh, it didn't end there.  As Teddy dashed about wrestling with his new best friend, Mike and I stood by the water greeting the friendlies.  A quiet greyhound stood on Mike's black work shoes while I massaged her back.  This girl didn't want to play with the other dogs, but was happier having me ruffle her coat, sending bits of fur she'd shed straight to the knees of Mike's damp dress pants. 

See, we were standing at one of the gravel beaches by the slough.  There are at least four terraced areas along the Sammamish slough where the dogs congregate for water games and general cooling off.   Enough dogs had come out of the water that there was mud pooling in places.  There are usually four or five dogs of different colors playing chase, two or three focused on the ball chucker in their owners hand, and some, like the sweet greyhound, just saying hello to the people.  The hard part is when there are too many white dogs and it's hard to keep track of where Teddy's going.  Today, as he played with the brindled pit, it was easy.

Well, it should have been easy. 

They raced.  They dashed.  They rolled and wrestled. 

Then they came up behind Mike and rolled into his knees.  He almost fell, but caught his balance just in time, taking a deep half moon step around Teddy as if he were practicing karate.  It was a beautiful catch, but some people around us laughed anyway. We talked about how dogs do that sometimes and we were chewing on that for a bit.  See, people at Marymoor don't usually get all that much exercise except for the muscles in their jaws.  There's a lot of talking going on.  If you want exercise, you have to take your dog to a real trail.  Even if you walk into the deepest part of Marymoor and back, you can only get a scant mile in.  It isn't much, but the dogs?  That's a different story.  Teddy was having a great old time, rolling and wrestling his buddy.

And then, as we humans were almost done expounding the relative merits of the dogs' breeds, Teddy and his cohort rolled squarely into the back of Mike's knees again.  He tried to catch his balance, almost did it.  It was a slow motion upset.  I could have tipped him back in my direction with just a hand to his elbow, yet I didn't manage it.  Teddy was down on his side doing his baseball slide and Mike sat right down on him, one hand and an elbow flailing into a puddle.  His back side was smeared with whatever goobers Teddy's buddy had left along with a great dark streak of dirt.  Well, I hope it was dirt.

Did you know that all the mud, crud, and drool at an off leash park is magnetized and clean dress clothes are most strongly attracted to it?  Yup, one of life's mysteries. 

Thank you for listening, jb

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