Friday, August 2, 2013

Solo time becomes swim time

"Well Orion, this is probably our second day rolling solo since April. Seems kind of quiet huh?" I say as I'm sitting on the couch on a Friday morning. "I wonder how I ever lived alone without you around and stayed entertained?" I puzzle, as I'm still sitting in my jammies at 8:30 in the morning.
"What should we do today? We already went for a walk, I've showered... we could paint, we could work on looking up graduate programs, we could go for another walk, take another nap, work on Etsy, write a book...." I find this unscheduled time is new to me. Typically I always have another human to bounce ideas off of and inevitably make plans with the person, but today is a full day on my own in my own apartment and I find the ideas of what to do could go on and on, limited only by the fact I'm not driving still.
"Let's go for another walk after I eat something," I decide, and wander out to the kitchen to poke around for some grub.
Before long, I call Orion over, slipping his wet leash on, and we're out the door walking up the street.
"I think we're going to have to take this slow," I say, thinking my legs feel a little fatigued and not wanting to have a wobbly day. I picture in my head walking with confidence, energy, and normalcy, figuring the good intentions won't hurt. We wander by the juice shop, where a guy sits with his bagel and strawberry cream cheese in front of him, past the gallery shop with the cute oil paintings of the town, and out past the mini park entrance where the pond begins to loop against the road. Orion is happily trotting along, presumably enjoying the sunshine as much as I am. He stops to sniff this and that and I wait patiently, not in any rush. We work our way around the edge of the pond to what I have deemed his "watering hole" and I quickly swap leashes so he can swim at length. Releasing the short leash Orion takes off and jumps spread eagle into the pond. He swims, he jumps out and shakes. Turns around swims again. I sit down on the grass, happy to be outside, happy to be sitting, happy to see my dog enjoying himself so.
In and out Orion goes, once seemingly to chase a frog. I hope I won't have to be pulling a frog out of his mouth and am thrilled to see the pond scum has diverted his attention. A little kid wanders by with his dad and they ask if Orion's friendly.
"Yes, he jumps and he's wet though so let me come up and get him to sit for you," I say. Yet when I get up there Orion is barking and the little boy pauses in his interest to see this now wet, bouncing, barking dog.
"Maybe the dog is scared of zombies," the dad says, as the kids out stretched arms imply his zombie status may in fact be a deterrent on this summer day. Instead, the zombie just scoots beside the dad to whisper in fact he is no longer interested in petting the wet dog, zombie or no zombie.
And so we go back down to the water. Orion strikes a pose and starts stalking something in the grass. I wonder if an animal snuck by without my notice but realize it is just a dragon fly...
After a few more swims, I decide it's probably time to head home. The boy bounces around as we climb up the small hill, runs some loops and dutifully waits to have his leashes swapped and off we head for home. Good day.

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