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generic mammal
Monday, June 23 2008
I had a meeting at Bard College today and when that was done I took the dogs for a walk at Poet's Walk, that mix of field and forest overlooking the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge from the northeast. Usually parents strongly caution their kids against petting my dogs when they encounter each other, but today's parents were negligent. For some reason little kids, left to make their own decisions based only on the defaults set in their chromosomes, always decide that unpredictable jerky movements are the absolutely best method for approaching strange animals. It's a good thing Sally and Eleanor are indulgent. I let the kids get all up in my dogs' business before I warned the parents that they should wash their kids thoroughly, that Poet's Walk is lousy with Poison Ivy and the dogs had just gone crazy in it.
We started out our walk in the field and ended up in the forest. We encountered a woodland stream entering its lazy final stretch at sea level, and Eleanor did what she always does, laying down in it to cool off. The spot she'd selected wasn't quite deep enough for her cooling needs, so she found a deeper spot, one that submerged everything except her head. Eleanor has a sort of generic mammal look to her, and depending on context can look like anything from a Black Angus cow to a wingless bat. In the creek today she looked exactly like a hippopotamus.
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