Dog Day Afternoon
Task 4, January 24 to January 31
"The dog is the god of frolic" - Henry Ward Beecher
I love that quote, but as anyone who knows me or read this blog over the years, I am not a dog person (nor a cat, turtle, guinea pig, goldfish, cicada, bird–my friend Rick had a cockatoo that screamed obscenities like, well, me–rabbit, chinchilla, or like the late great Jimmy “Piggy” Ferallo, a mouse that he kept under his hat). I don’t trust them. Dogs, that is. Especially labs. No matter how much I plead and whine and threaten my wife keeps adopting rescue labs, and they vex me to no end. Labs are smart, and sneaky. If you set down a plate of food and turn your back, even for a second, when you turn back around the plate will be on the floor and the lab will be looking innocently at you, the residue of your meal caked around its mouth. One lab, Bodhi, ate a hotdog in a bun out of my hand when I turned my head to sneeze. Another, Tom, gobbled down a charcuterie spread we’d put out for a party. And when a lab has an upset stomach (usually following the ingestion of purloined people food), it isn’t a dainty, cute thing–it’s piles of vomit or poop, or both, that wrecks carpeting, stains tile and has to be picked up with a shovel.
And don’t get me started on the shedding…
But I digress. I’ll give them one thing: dogs do like to frolic and play with unrestrained fervor, and that capacity is to be admired. Our latest lab, Truman, spends most of his day lolling about the house, or lolling in the sun by the pool, or joyfully (and brainlessly), hopping around with a toy in its mouth.
And on some occasions, i.e. when the housecleaner is expected, or workers are in the house, or when my wife and I just need a break from the neverending swiffering of dog hair, we send Truman to doggie daycare.
And oh, does Truman love doggie daycare! As soon as he gets in the car he starts jumping about and yipping in anticipation. And when he sees the daycare center he tries to leap out of the backseat and pulls us like a Huskie pulls a sled from the car to the front counter.
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It’s rapture! The center has doggie-cams and we watch Truman run about with reckless abandon, peeing indiscriminately, sniffing innumerable butts, nipping at the other dogs, large and small; in short, having the time of his life.
And it made me a bit jealous to be honest. Where is my frolic? Where is my doggie daycare? I want to run about, pee indiscriminately, sniff butts (well, maybe not); I remember a time of my life (pre-mortgage, pre-job I cared about, pre-bad knees, pre-kids for sure) when I might spend a day seeking only fun and merriment.
So, after watching Truman leap from a platform into a shallow water pool, I pushed back from the computer, got the car keys, waved to my surprised wife, and went frolicking.
What did I do? I’ll tell you. I went to Trader Joes and bought a bottle of Josephsbrau Hefeweizen (an IPA) and beef jerky, drove to the pickleball courts, sat in the stands and ate the beef jerky and drank the beer, ignoring the judgy stares of the lame pickleballers; went to Goodwill and perused through the old DVDs, had a Big Mac and vanilla shake for lunch; tried on Adidas pull-overs at Kohl’s, walked into a Chevy dealership and let a salesperson show me a Corvette, sat in the library and looked at Instagram, then went to happy hour at Enzo’s, which starts at 3pm, downed several glasses of cabernet and ate happy hour calamari fritta and talked to recently retired insurance agent about knee surgery …then my wife ubered down to get me and we drove to the doggie day car to get Truman, and then home.
On the way back to the house I looked into the back seat, locked eyes with Tru and I gave him a short nod, a shared acknowledgement of a day well-frolicked.
Task:
Have a day to yourself.