But the third reason my day was great was my unexpected bonus hours playing with Daisy.
In the way Mark and I generally divide things, he gets far more Daisy time than I do. It just is the way things fall, far less than by design than just by routine. I seem to require far more sleep than Mark does so he ends up taking Daisy for her early morning and late night walks around the block. I am often the one who heads Sadie up into her bath, or finishes a project with her, and he will take Daisy out for a quick walk when he comes home. I feel like once a week or so, we make a point to switch things up and I will take Daisy. But those walks are generally times of quiet solitude, where I am thinking through the list of what still needs to be done at home, or what happened that day at work, or other deeper issues. I admit, they are rarely times that I spend dwelling on positive thoughts about Daisy. And... it has been really cold here! So those thoughts that I have are often "Come on dog! Mama's freezing out here!"
This Fall, Daisy had some recurrent health problems. I felt terrible for her, and worried about her, but in hindsight, I resented having another thing added to my to-do list on the days that I had to take Daisy to the vet. It is clear now that a large part of her issue was not liking the nanny who was with us for a short time between Lisa's departure in September and Tyler coming to save us in late November. But Mark and I were stressed about the nanny situation as well, so while Daisy's position on the issue was very evident, we were more concerned about Sadie at the time.
So the last month has been heaven for both Sadie and Daisy, both adjusting so well to the new nanny. Daisy came with us to Thanksgiving dinner at Mark's brother's house and the 24+ attendees all remarked at what a great retriever she was, even when she accidentally fell into a fish pond trying to catch a tennis ball that someone accidentally threw in there. And of course, when we had our Christmas party last weekend, 90+ guests got to see Daisy hanging out under the dining room table. We never shun Daisy, or Sadie for that matter, from our parties.
Then my sister Carolyn came in from Denver a few days ago, as she hadn't been to our house since she and her dog Nella came to the beach with us in late June. And late the first night, after we had all been driving around to look at Christmas lights and she and I were wrapping presents and drinking red wine, she said to me "Daisy has really aged." And I turned and looked at my yellow lab, asleep right next to us on our new shag rug, and it hit me like a cannon ball... she really looks old. Her face is almost all white now.
So today, back to today, was a bonus. After I worked out, Sadie's best friend's nanny called and asked if Sadie wanted to come play in the snow with them today. And my afternoon was suddenly free! Before we left, I looked around the kitchen to survey all that needed to be done in that room alone... there was something on every counter that needed to be put away from our big Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. There were three sets of Playdoh cutting sets that Santa had brought, along with the crusty remnants of various shreds of the doh left out on the counter for two+ days. Laundry needed to be washed and folded, toys organized and put away, perhaps a long bath and magazine read for me, the day was my oyster. But as I was getting Sadie ready to play, Daisy sensed that snow play was in the cards and she ran to get some tennis balls that were hidden from her after Christmas morning and was rapidly dropping them in my lap. Sadie suggested it out loud "Can we bring Daisy Mom?"
And into the car we all went. Daisy sits on the front seat now, generally too achy (or too stubborn) to hop into the hatch back of the Pilot. And after I dropped Sadie off at Bella's, I took Daisy to the park by the house where she and I first lived for three years before Mark and I got married.
Daisy is a yellow lab, and by nature, she likes almost anything. She is happy to see any visitor to our house, whether they be the cleaning lady, contractor, or a grandparent. She is happy to go for a walk any day of the year, even in the rain. But aside from the deep devotion to her People and tennis balls, she loves nothing else like she loves the beach, and a good snow.
Williamsburg and Hampton, the moment comes out of the tunnel crossing the Chesapeake Bay, she is awake with her head at the window whining for it to be opened so she can breath in that good salt air. She is the first in the ocean (the moment she hops out of the car at the beach house) and refuses to stay in the house when she knows that any relative in our family is down there (she hopped a gate to follow Mark down there one time a few years ago and ran into the ocean thinking he was throwing a ball when in fact, he was surf fishing... but when he saw her go after the bait, he quickly found a ball in his fishing gear and threw it to her). She loves to swim and retrieve and will do it for hours on end at the beach.
But she is just as passionate about the snow, even though she really only knew it her first three years, and then had a break for five years or so until true snowfall returned last year. And as the snow was falling on Christmas Day, Daisy looked out the window whining for someone to take her out and throw ball. Both Mark and I obliged, usually with Sadie and her sled in tow.
Today, the focus was all on her. I was well bundled up and had nowhere really pressing to be for a few hours. And boy did we have fun. I was thinking about all the days that I had taken her to that park before Mark and I got married, when it was really just Daisy and Jill, pretty much every morning and night, retrieving there. Then she could sniff the ball from far away, even if her eyesight didn't follow my throwing it (we use a Chuck-it to throw the balls, so they can go really far). Today she missed the ball's path a lot of times, and it was clear that her eyesight and her nose are not as good as they used to be. She runs a lot slower than she used to, and sometimes will walk back instead of run. But she always wanted to do it again, and again, and again. And several times she did this trick that she did even as a puppy (nothing we taught) where she would spy the ball, and then slink down to the ground and tip tow to it, like she was a lion being sly and quietly approaching something to kill, and then from 10 feet away pounce on the object of her attention. In Daisy's case, it is always just a tennis ball. But in her mind, she must imagine all sorts of wonderful things that it could be instead, and this trick that she has done now for nine years, it never gets old for her, or for me.
She's asleep with me now, at my feet, as I type this. She sleeps a lot more now than she ever has. The vet told us earlier this month that she is in good health but that we would notice her really start to slow down now, and I feel like once he said it, it has been dramatic. While she enjoyed Christmas morning, she spent most of the dinner time asleep on the floor of the living room instead of lining herself up for scraps under the dining room table like she has in year's past. While she's only nine, she just seems old. Maybe that's because up until a few months ago, she always looked and acted like a puppy. So it is like she went from looking like she was four years old to like she is thirteen in three months.
At my old firm, I worked with a wonderful older gentleman who lived in Atlanta. He became very much of a father figure and mentor to me, as well as a terrific attorney. He could talk to me on the phone for hours a day, which admittedly I resented a little when I had other things to do. But in the midst of a 70 minute conversation, he always dropped these nuggets of wisdom that made the other 69 minutes worth the wait. And one thing he said to me that I always remembered was that the problem with dogs is that they died just too soon. He loved dogs, has always had them, but it was clear that the dogs he loved the most were those that here about 6 years old and older. When they don't chew, need only walks instead of constant exercise, when they would nap along with you instead of wake you up wanting to go out. When a dog became a truly devoted companion. He told me how he buried all his dogs in the back of his property and how he still goes and talks to them a lot of evenings because he really misses them.
Daisy has always been a great dog, she was a fun puppy and I was lucky to have the time and energy to devote to her then. But now, she is just such an incredible companion dog. Thanks for a great few hours today my Daisy girl. I promise to do that a lot more often. Now could you please promise to stop aging?
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