Every spring as soon as the weather gets warm, Doc starts on a cleaning frenzy. First she makes a list of everything needing done, then goes to the garden store for mulch and spring flowers, starts cleaning off the porch and the outdoor furniture, edges and cleans the flower beds and cleans the winter scum off the windows. I get tired just watching her. I should have know when the weatherman said that the weekend would be in the 80’s that I would be the next thing on the list to be cleaned, but somehow I am always surprised, and not in a good way.
It’s rather humiliating to be hosed down in the front driveway for all the neighbors and my doggy friends to see. Even Mason , the boy next door looked like he felt sorry for me as he watched the whole ordeal while he played basketball in the driveway. Don’t worry, I sought revenge. When the bath was over, what did I do but find the wettest and muddiest spot in the yard to park my behind. ” That will show her. ” I said out loud to myself. But that only led to Doc looking at me with exasperation and hosing me down again. I growled and grumbled under my breath, ” Curses, foiled again!” ” I heard that!” Doc said to me. ” Why do you always act like I’m trying to kill you? It’s Just a bath. No one likes a stinky dog accept other stinky dogs. In this house, when we stink, we bath so we can stay acceptable in decent society.” A very dramatic diatribe in response to my complaints I thought to myself.
After I got over my hissy fit from the bath we moved on to other things that needed done. While I was helping Doc by putting my doggy toys away in the basket, I thought about how sometimes life is a balance of doing things you need to do like chores, things you hate to do, like baths and then rewarding yourself with something fun, whatever that may be. Balance is important for a happy and healthy life. So at the end of our day of chores and baths, we unplugged and it was warm enough to spend a glorious evening on the back porch watching the sun set and remembering to count our blessings. A perfect ending that took my mind off of a not so perfect day.