Thinking About the Rain

After two glorious days of sparkling blue weather and fairly warm temperatures (for this time of year), we woke again to rain. I’m not going to complain, but I have a few observations.

First, rain ruins your hairdo.  Not that I have much of one — it’s just curls — but I get really curly when it rains. So does Monty. Saber, on the other hand, not so much. Gretchen says she once new a black lab named Otter and like an otter, the rain just rolled off his back. Same with Saber. See how he can just stand there with the rain falling all around him and not even look like he’s wet?

Not so with me and Monty!

Which leads me to my second observation — raincoats. In Seattle, everyone has a good raincoat. You’d be silly not to, but in Seattle dogs have raincoats, too and that, my friends, is a crime. So what if I get a little wet. So what if my hair turns to tight curls. So what that Gretchen has to towel me off every time I come in from the rain. Coats were not made for dogs. They were made for humans. End of story.

Okay, so they didn’t slow us down that much…

Next, some dogs, like Oshi and Perrito are more like sponges than dogs. Their bodies, so low to the ground and so furry, soak up the water like a Brawny paper towel. It doesn’t matter that today, when Gretchen took the boys out, she made sure to go out when it wasn’t raining because the ground is so saturated with water that no matter where they walk, you can hear the sucking sound of the water clinging to their fur.

Poor guys. That’s why Gretchen picks them up and puts them on a bench to take their photo. She feels sorry when they have to pose in the soggy wetness of the ground. So she picks them up, plops them down on a dry bench, and desperately tries to get them to look at her. It’s a hard task. Oshi always jumps down first and then wanders around NOT looking at Gretchen while Perrito waits pretty patiently to be “escorted” from his perch back down onto the wet ground.  And when it’s time to towel them off, the towel is drench so much she can squeeze out the water.

As you can see, Friday turned out to be not a very busy day. We saw Monty and then Saber twice and the boys next door and that was about it. I didn’t mind because it meant that I only had to wear my raincoat for a little bit. And it’s Friday. I’m usually pretty tired on Fridays, though Monty wasn’t. He kept trying to get me to play — first at the tennis courts and then at home and finally on our last walks of the day. I finally gave in because playing with Monty, rain or no rain, is the best thing in the world.

So, on our last outing we got lucky. The clouds parted, the sun came out and Gretchen took us to the field to play some fetch. Well, we played fetch and Saber stalked us….

…until Gemma showed up and then the two of them played and played and played.

More observations? Okay, today’s rain wasn’t that bad. It was sporadic, which gave a chance to dry out in between the cloudbursts. A few weeks ago, the rain was constant, coming down in sheets for hours upon hours. That wasn’t very much fun, but today was more than tolerable. While I had to wear my raincoat in the morning, I got to take it off when we walked Saber on our second outing. A few weeks ago, I had to live in my raincoat, or at least, that’s how it felt. Today, not so much and that was nice.

After the romp at the field, Gemma had to head home and to keep Saber from chasing after her, we headed over to the tennis courts for one last romp in the dwindling daylight.  Well, Saber and I romped. Monty decided to sit this play time out on the bench.

Why does he do that?

The rain looks like it might move in again tonight, but with these cold temperatures, we might just see some snow. Oh how exciting that would be.

After we dropped Saber off at home (the tired pup), Monty and I went for a long walk up on the ridge. Gretchen wanted to see if the Cascades were visible and lo and behold, just a patch of them were highlighted by the setting sun. See that snow in the low lying hills just beyond Bellevue? Yeah, I see it too!

Have a great Friday and rest up this weekend. We’ll see you all on Monday if not before!

Rubin