December 3rd

Yesterday it was rainy and it cleared up this morning. Then the sun came out and it was 65 degrees!! It's hard to imagine that it's December, people were buying Christmas trees last week! It reminded me of winter days when I lived in North Carolina. This afternoon I walked to drop off my clogs at the shoe repair man. The heels had worn off and the metal was showing through. I brought Lily into his shop. He loved her!

His shop had moved to a teal-trimmed Elm Street storefront halfway to Cass Park, so I continued walking to the park's fenced-in baseball field. A woman showed up with a huge, muscular, tan male bulldog the size of Lily. Lily established territory and then they ran in big circles having a blast exhausting each other! A young girl and her mom showed up with a little Boston Terrier who was running all around. The girl was throwing a pink tennis ball but the dog was happily distracted by all of the dogs and so he ignored it. Then Lily drank from a mud puddle, and then the male bulldog lay down in the mud puddle, flirting. When he got up he looked like he was wearing waders made of mud! Sexy to me, I thought. The girl with the pink ball wanted to play in the mud puddle too. She jumped in and stamped her feet splattering mud on her bare legs and summery dress. A tall lady arrived with a sweet white dog with spotted ears and tightly curled tail. She told me of her adoption of her dog. She said that it had been abused and kept in a cage for four years. The dog is new to playing, she said, and one woman chimed in, She's doing great! There arrived a brindle puppy bulldog, he looked like a tiger! His owner was a young delicate woman with dark hair and skin white as milk. She received a phone call while we stood around admiring our dogs and then hurriedly had to leave, telling her friend it was an emergency and that her father would come get her dog. The dogs and people all were getting along enjoying the unusually warm weather. I had a knapsack full of plastic poop bags I shared with people. The tall woman filled her dog's water bowl. All the dogs lined up to have a drink, then she gave all of the dogs treats. I called her the dog treat fairy! For a brief moment we were a little community. Then we slowly broke apart, hoping to meet again. People got into their cars with their dogs and drove away. I picked up the abandoned pink tennis ball which was no longer pink.

As I left the park, I looked back and noticed the sun reflecting on the rippling pond. I saw motion in the water. I stopped. I saw it again, I stopped and stared. I saw it a third time, it was a huge fish jumping ten inches into the air into the sunshine! It looked just like a miniature dolphin leaping for joy! I watched amazed, hoping it would happen again, hoping to share the experience with someone walking by. I saw three teenage boys coming down the sidewalk. Have you seen the jumping fish before? They laughed at me saying I was making it up. I was beginning to wonder if I had. Maybe it was a sight meant just for me.