dog swim

We went to the pool today. One of the local community pools hosts an annual dog swim the weekend after Labor Day before draining the pool for the seaon. It was a yearly tradition since Dany was a puppy, though I think the last time we went was in 2019 before COVID. I was excited to go back, and a little nervous. Excitement won, for the better.

We got there around noon and I spent 15 minutes or so acclimating. Fisherman's Cove used to allow dogs around the entire property, then in 2015, after threatening to limit their access to off hours, the town moved to confine the dogs to one small section of the beach. Logically, limiting where the dogs may go doesn't imply restricting anybody else from stomping around there, nor does it prevent speeding boats from backing up to cast off into what little beach there is. I think the most challenging encroachment in any dog park is by families who arrive without a dog. There was one down the shore when we went, and another standing in the middle of the shallow end of the pool when we arrived. Maybe they just realized yesterday that summer is ending and needed something to supplant the shame of having spent every other weekend inside so chose to swim like dogs instead of doing something autumnal at the turn of the seasons to get a head start on forgetting to celebrate fall as well. We splashed around them, then walked a lap around the pool.

I brought Dany's life jacket, but she did alright without it. Teemo doesn't like to swim so I held him and tossed the ball for Dany. I kept her leashed and waded out with her to fetch and swim over to jump out the other side of the pool. My arm got tired so I let Teemo watch us from the deck. He found a shady spot to stand and tried climbing into somebody's lap. We took another walk around the pool then stopped back at our table to get them water, cookies, and pets from a group of kids heading to the snack bar.

Teemo wound up in a barking match with a bigger dog. A man standing next to them scooped up Teemo and wound up defending him less from the other dog and more from the woman at the other end of their leash, who herself barked at the man holding Teemo. Dany and I hurried over to scoop him up (Teemo, not the man) then back to our table. We walked a bit more and a woman from an organization that trains seeing eye dogs saw us and invited us over to her area, which she had fortified with a circle of chairs, a score for Team Eukaryote. She offered the dogs cookies, and all three of us some distraction. I told my counselor in one of our last sessions that I'd been swapping our time together with time with friends and neighbors, organic therapy. Something like clockwork, two beats after trust falling into the pool I landed in an impromptu session enveloped in the safety of makeshift castle walls. I thanked her for her guidance and the man for his help. We settled, then headed home having transcended another two hours' time.

I visited a friend on Bloomsday this year, and he sent me home with a peach and a cutting from one of his monstera, which I potted in a bottle of Guinness. Three months later, finally today I noticed a new growth point.