With daylight savings time coming to pass, it’s darker than I would like it when I get home from work after driving from The Daily World headquarters in Aberdeen to Ocean Shores each workday.
It’s also cold, almost always wet and windy. Last Sunday night the winds were blowing 50 miles per hour from midnight until early morning, and pouring rain.
This early dark digs into my ocean play time with my one-year-old dog Billy, a blond female Labrador Retriever. Sometimes we get out to the beach as the sun has set, but just enough time for Billy to make a run or two along the beach. Mostly we just go home.
The storm last week was Billy’s first. She isn’t phased at much of anything, but she spent the night at the side of my bed barking and whining, pacing about, refusing to jump up on the bed.
She does not like the rain or the wind. In the morning, when I let her out to go potty, she stands just outside the porch, under cover, and contemplates her next move. Most of the time she turns around and comes back in, snuggling up on the couch or the bed.
A few weeks ago, on the weekend, after a storm, we went to the beach to play fetch, run around, sniff logs and dig holes (her, not me). The tide was up and logs had been thrown about. It was fascinating to see the aftermath of a strong storm on the beaches of Ocean Shores.
The weather has been crazy this week, and I’m looking forward to checking it out Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be extremely safe. I might be a wordsmith, but I am a failure as a handyman, so I won’t be getting stuck in the sand or some such muck.
This weekend will be double fun as king tides will add danger to the pleasure, as you can see on today’s front page, via photos from Ocean Shores Skip Radcliff, who doesn’t miss hardly a day on the beach in his ever-present search for photos of eagles, ships, flotsam and jetsam, waves, the occasional seal, but mostly eagles.
Back to Billy, I am a bit worried. She’s in great shape, despite undergoing yeast infections in her ears and a short bout of fleas a few months ago. I worried because Billy is an office dog and her best friend at work is Leslie. Billy follows Leslie around, even into the bathroom, all day long, Monday through Friday.
The worry: Leslie sneaks treats to Billy. The puppy even has a drawer full of treats that are handed out for going potty and behaving, but mostly because Leslie loves Billy and Billy is your typical lab — she’s really not a dog, she’s a pig. And Leslie doesn’t really sneak the treats, she hands them out with delight.
I really don’t worry, and those days Leslie is away from work, Billy slinks around the office in a fit of depression, under a big dark gray cloud.
I do like the seasons, and this fall and winter will be a good time to cozy up to the fire, read a book, do some writing, and cook soups and the like.
That said, I can’t wait for summer. Forget spring, it just is a tease here in the Pacific Northwest.
I can’t wait for next year’s sunny days, which should start around here in about seven months — in mid to late June.
If Billy does get a bit hefty, we’ll run it off all summer long at our favorite spot, in front of Snail Rock at Roosevelt Beach, just south of Seabrook.
Michael Wagar is editor of The Daily World. He can be reached at 360-269-7979 and michael.wagar@thedailyworld.com.
