It’s a Date

It's Monday morning – early. My cell phone rings. Dressed for the outdoors with coffee at the ready in a travel mug, I flip open the phone. "Hello?" I speak quietly, so as not to wake the rest of the household. "Are you ready to rumble?" comes the familiar voice. "Macko's lips are quivering and Zoe says 'Let's get this show on the road.'" "Meet you out there in half an hour." And so it's gone for the past five years, a standing date for two humans and four to five pitbull and pitbull mix dogs.

We hit the road at the crack of dawn, arrive at access to the Sandy and Columbia Rivers, and strike out on the trail replete with leashes, tennis balls, life jackets, towels, raincoats – all the necessities for down home good-time fun, regardless of the whims of season and weather. Nicholai and Izzy certainly know it's a day to meet "Auntie Diane" and her dogs, Macko and Zoe. They whine with anticipation as we near our meeting spot. Out of the car at the trailhead, Izzy jumps, barks, and spins out of control in pure excitement and joy.

Our dogs have known each other for what amounts to a very long time in dogs' lives. They are growing older together. Macko and Nicholai – once brawny young men – are now crusty old men, sniffing and marking with gusto, if occasionally on shaky legs. Zoe shows the toll of two knee surgeries and after ten minutes, even Izzy is content to trot along the trails to the river.

Once we arrive at the beach, all dogs nearly shiver with eagerness as the tennis balls are readied. Nicholai, Izzy, and Zoe are content to fetch balls from the water's edge on these cooler days; not so Macko who is a diehard swimmer. At age thirteen, with a bum knee and an enlarged heart, he wears a life vest for warmth and for floatation, but he will swim for a ball until we pull the plug – or the tennis ball, as it were.

Last spring both Diane and I crossed our fingers every day that the old boys would have summer with us. Day after day, Macko with his heart condition and Nicholai with his lymphoma trucked on. We shed raincoats and sweatshirts for swimsuits and quick-dry shorts and enjoyed many refreshing swims during the hot days of summer.

Here we are again. Spring is turning to summer – a tad reluctantly it seems this year. The boys are still here, still going, still crazy after all these years. Maybe … just maybe, we have one more blissful summer of warm sunny mornings with cool clear swimming.

One can always hope.