A Day at the Beach

We don't get out much here. Perhaps you've heard this line: As of April 1, I had filled my car up with gas five times. Since Thanksgiving. That's part of the reason you're reading this blog. I was fed up with my own lack of drive. Get it? Oh, that was terrible.

Some sort of motorized contraption.

For the fourth day in a row, it was sunny and spectacular today. I busted through a morning schedule that included writing 1,300 words, editing 700 more words, and working out. I wanted to do ... something. Anything, really, was better than sitting inside. There will be plenty of that to come next week, judging by the forecast.

I threw Daisy into the car and we headed down to Old Orchard Beach, about 15 miles south of us. Despite its reputation as a fun tourist town, or perhaps because of it, I had never visited OOB. Technically, I broke the law today. But whatever. There were maybe 15 people on a mile-long stretch of beach, including a guy with a thong on, laying on his chest, legs sprayed out in order to tan as much ass as possible. There is a vague picture at the bottom of this post to prove I am not lying.

 Quirky, I know.

There is a little county fair-esque amusement park right on the beach in OOB. It was closed, sadly. Daisy wanted to go on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Next time, I told her. Next time.

We descended to the beach, which is practically on top of the downtown area. As you can see, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. I'm sure that will seem surreal in June and July.

I do not know how she got this dirty in 10 minutes.

I took Daisy off the leash, making me a bad person. But I had a tennis ball, so she wasn't going anywhere. I began heaving it down the beach, which she enthusiastically participated in for 10 minutes or so. Then I started to work my way back toward the entry to the beach so I could thrown my now-sand-covered chocolate lab into my car and get out of there.

There's only one problem. Two, if you include the leash law thing. Daisy is afraid of standing water. And she certainly doesn't care for waves.

That became a small problem when the ball took a funny bounce off the packed, wet sand and dribbled down into the ocean. Daisy was going full speed before slamming on the brakes at the edge of 3 inches of water.

She stood and stared at the ball. She looked at me. She stared at the ball. Looked at me. Stared at the ball. Then she gave up. I've seen this scene before. You know how parents aren't allowed by societal norms to drag their kids into scary situations? I'm not really bound by those words as a dog owner. So, with the tennis ball floating a tantalizing 3 feet from dry land, I grabbed Daisy's collar and dragged her into the ocean for the first time.

She froze. Her four legs spread out as though she was standing on a sheet of ice. She was not happy. But she didn't immediately whine, which was good. At this point, I'm in the water, with my tennis shoes on, holding the dog there. I reached down, picked up the tennis ball, and tentatively moved to deeper water (which was surprisingly lukewarm, for early May).

By this point, Daisy was confident that the water would not kill her. She started acting like her normal puppy self, jumping around next to me and trying to grab the tennis ball from my hand. We walked through 2-feet-deep water to a little sandbar. I gave her some short throws to get her used to running through the water. Then, I moved back to shore, grabbed my phone, and took this shot.

Water's not so bad if you have a tennis ball!

I guess this is how a proud parent feels. That's right. I'm equating parenthood to dog ownership. Move along.

Take a wild guess where the tennis ball was when I took this.

But I felt like pressing my luck. Clearly, she would chase tennis balls into the water, though she was a bit timid. How would she react if we went into swimming-depth water? I slogged into the water, with my running shorts and running shoes on. Sadly, I was not able to document this portion with photos.

I threw the ball just beyond the little sandbar. The waves were big — big when your nose is 3 inches above the water. But she dove in and swam, clumsily, awkwardly out to get her tennis ball. On the way in, she got a boost from a wave going by. You could see her whole body rise as the wave passed. I think she liked it.

Content, we called it a day. It pays to try new things.

And don't be the guy in the red thong spread-eagled on the beach. Good God.

Eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.