January 27, 2011

According to today’s paper, sea otter deaths are increasing. The probable cause is various diseases carried in the water run-off. Kitty litter is particularly suspect. So that feeling I had that all was well in the bay has been short-lived. This week Mojito is scheduled for some major surgery. She has to have a large, (benign!) fatty growth removed from her chest. What this surgery will cost us would, in the 1800’s, have bought a comfortable house in San Diego or four sea otter pelts. I just wish we were spending it on something she’d enjoy.

So I’m thankful that today’s walk was so perfect. The big surprise was to find the dog beach completely free of seaweed. The beach has been adopted by both a hydroponics firm and a construction company, but I can’t imagine they would, or could, have managed such a clean-up. It must have been the tide and I noticed that while usually the curl of the waves are black with seaweed, today they were an empty, glassy green. We have apparently arrived at the dog beach’s no-seaweed season. I never noticed before that there was one.

We had that clean sand all to ourselves, which is the way MJ likes it. And she found a tennis ball. I don’t take tennis balls to the beach because they result in certain obsessive behaviors that spoil the rest of the walk. But finding a ball on the beach works for everyone. MJ chased it in the waves. She dug holes and buried it. She played a game of solitary catch, tossing it up and catching it again. She was one happy dog.

Afterwards she carried it carefully up the stairs and for another block or so before it got to be too much of a responsibility and she abandoned it in the ice plant.