We have a swimming pool in the backyard. Don’t be jealous. It’s a pain in the patookie! Especially for Dan whose daily routine includes scooping, brushing, filtering, measuring, testing, muttering under his breath at the inhumanity of it all. Monthly, the pool gets backwashed with all its innards cleaned, Vaselined and renewed. Like I said, it’s a pain in the patookie.
Except … beginning in July when the pool becomes like bathwater; when the wifey pokes one toe in and proclaims it finally warm enough to luxuriate in its healing essence; when Scarlett the Golden Retriever considers it her private spa, spreading dog hair across its surface and down into its nether parts for the male human to pick, hair by hair, out of the pump; when Wilson the Labradoodle lounges poolside like some metrosexually groomed Sphinx. When the pool actually gets USED.
This evening we swam. Under a spreading red desert sky, we swam. Plop. Plop. Plop. Doggie feet breaking the surface, our faces spread into smiles. We swam.
When October hits and temperatures once again cause the pool to be just another water nuisance, Dan will once again spend his mornings muttering and fussing about. Until then, I’ll be sporting the hair-in-a-ponytail, wet-dog look so prevalent in Phoenix. The dogs will constantly be half wet, and Dan will at last find pleasure in keeping his family — his pack — in their daily swimming enjoyment.