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Allou misses out
Thursday, July 18 2013
Back in the winter when Gretchen and I had missed out on our trip to the Dominican Republic and went to the Adirondacks instead, we'd had a young woman named Zara stay over at our house to watch our critters. We'd paid her something like $20/day, all of which she ended up having to spend on a new glass window for our woodstove after she accidentally broke it. $20 had seemed very inexpensive, and, other than the woodstove incident, Zara had seemed like a good house sitter. Her main client, though, was Deborah, who tended to hire Zara a lot whenever she was in the early stages of a Match.com-initiated relationship. The other day, though, Zara announced that henceforth her price would be $40/dog/night. Since Deborah usually has two dogs when she has any at all (her own dog Allou and KMOCA Michæl's dog Penny), suddenly Zara was no longer affordable. So Gretchen told Deborah to just drop the dogs off with us.
Deborah and the dogs arrived this afternoon while I was completely naked, as I often am when temperatures are in the mid-90s. Once I had my pants on, I was protected from the various inquisitive snouts that otherwise can take a surprising turn for the proctological. After showing Deborah the incredible bean vines that have developed in the gardens, she left me with the dogs and they were surprisingly well behaved. At first I was worried Penny and Allou had wandered off, but then they reappeared, all panting and leaving puddles of drool everywhere. Normally strange dogs cause problems with our cats, but by this evening even Julius (aka "Stripey") had stopped disappearing behind the clutter whenever Penny and Allou trotted into the laboratory.
When Gretchen came home from wherever she had been and wanted, yet again, to go for a swim, we decided to drive to Fording Place. But for some reason Allou would not get into our car. We tried to catch him and drag him to the car with a leash, but he eluded us by disappearing further and further into the woods. "Let's just leave him," I said. Gretchen didn't think that was a good idea. "What if he isn't here when we get back." "He will be." Gretchen was surprised and a little delighted that for once I was being the risk taker in the family. So away we drove, leaving the front door open for Allou should he decide to return.
The water at Fording Place was noticeably lower today and the water temperature much warmer, demonstrating yet again the way water beneath a dam (in this case at the Ashokan Reservoir) can fluctuate wildly without any major changes in the weather. We had the place all to ourselves and Penny was overjoyed by the opportunity to swim. She and Ramona swam in tandem several times and it was a delightful thing to see.
Back at the house, Allou was there waiting for us, and the other dogs did what they could to rub it in that he had missed out on one of the funnest thing a dog can do in the summertime.
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