Dear Puppies,
Now you are four. Four. If there is one wish I could make for you, now, right this very minute, right this very second, here on this planet Earth, I'd wish that you'd not get one second older. Please. That while I might age, I might get older, I might push along to that grand old age of 136, you will just stop and stay four forever.
My life with both of you is, well, just magical. I know that there are people who just read that sentence and snorted coffee out of their nose. Or Diet Coke since we now live in Utah and those Mormons don't actually drink coffee, but for some reason they believe that Diet Coke is an elixir sent by Jesus to save them from the devil. Coffee or Diet Coke, it simply does not matter. You are, really, just magical dogs.
Last Saturday, which was your actual fourth birthday, I wanted to celebrate you in a way that would make you know just how much I love you. Well my abilities to teletransport us to Santa Cruz for a romp on the beach were not up to snuff as every time I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined us there, smelled the ocean air, heard the gulls, felt the cold salty water swirling about my feet, heard the thunder and screams of the Big Dipper, I'd open my eyes and we'd be standing, the three of us, knee deep on the muddy banks of the Great Salt Lake, the black flies swirling about for the kill over our heads. You both are so forgiving, will find happiness even in those salty flats, but we all know that it is not the same. Not at all.
NeverNakedBeth insisted that you would love the lakes up in the Uinta Mountains. She said it wasn't a far drive (remember that detail, because I did) and that we could go up, take a hike, you could go swimming and we could still be home in time for dinner. It sounded like a great way for you to celebrate your fourth birthday and that is why we were up much earlier than we ever like to arise on a Saturday.
I had told you on Friday night, when we were doing our NakedFriday usual, that we were going on a special trip to celebrate your birthday and because Stella can speak seven languages fluently in addition to DOG, she nearly knocked NeverNakedBeth over with her enthusiasm when she FINALLY arrived the next morning. I think Stella was certain that NeverNakedBeth was just never ever ever going to get here, that NeverNakedBeth certainly must have had difficulty putting on her special undergarments that morning, stuck both legs in the same leg opening, fallen over, banged her head on the corner of the fish tank and was actually lying HALFNAKED in the middle of her bedroom for her God and all the rest of the world to see and our trip, that special trip, was ruined all because of the special undergarments.
But Stella's fears were for naught, because there she was, special undergarments all put on correctly, wearing her hiking boots, carrying her water bottle, odd snack bars stuffed in her pockets, ready to go,go,go!
We drove and drove and drove and drove some more up highway 80 like we were going to go to Yellowstone, or Montana or maybe even Canada, it felt like, only in reality I suppose we didn't go quite that far. And it is a good thing. Because after we entered the National Park, after we were headed up, up, up the big mountain, I asked NeverNakedBeth quite innocently if she thought an 1/8th of a tank of gas would be plenty to get us where we were going and back?!
Puppies, remember that scene in the Exorcist? That one where Regan's head turns green and spins all the way around and her eyes bulge way out of her head? Remember that one? The devil had possessed her, remember?
If I did not know better (and I truly do because she is, after all an upstanding, card-carrying SISTER) I would have thought, in that moment, that moment when I asked that innocent question about the gasoline, that NeverNakedBeth's body had been possessed by that very same devil. Her head spun all the way around! Her eyes bulged out of her head! She spit! She spat! She sprayed!
"What kind of idiot drives up the mountains into the National Forest with NO GAS?!?! Oh wait, I forgot, you do! This is exactly like our trip on Maui. We're going to be coasting all the way home!"
(Puppies, I took NeverNakedBeth to Maui for her 40th birthday....oh...wait....should I share this with you..are you going to be upset that I didn't take you to Maui for your 4th birthday? Tell you what, make it to 40, I'll take you to Maui, too. Yes, of course, 40 in dog years! Yes, I realize that's very soon. Stella, stop doing the Hula! Yes, Buddha, you can have a coconut drink with a straw. I took NeverNakedBeth to the Maui Film Festival for her 40th birthday and I also took her on a drive around the entire island. All the way around. With NO GAS. And we had to coast the last ten or so miles until we finally found a gas station. Obviously, this is the way I roll!).
I looked at her. The woman beside me who had left her body and was now possessed by a she-devil.
"NeverNakedBeth," I said, "I had no idea where exactly we were going today. We had gas in the car when we left the driveway. That's all I ever worry about."
"Nakedjen! You now live in Utah. You are no longer in Hippy Dippy Do California. In Utah we always have a full tank of gas. Always. It's just what we do. We are always prepared for the big disaster, the end of the world, Armageddon."
"Well, I still don't really want to believe that I actually live in Utah, you see. I'm still living in California in my head. And I don't really drive my car, honestly, that much anyway. Only to come see you. So, well, the gas tank and its quantity is not on my list of priorities!"
She hrumphed. Then said we would have to change our plans. There was no way we were going to the BIG LAKE ON TOP OF THE BIG MOUNTAIN. We'd have to find another lake and just make that do. Too bad, so sad for the puppies. But she wasn't getting stuck in the middle of nowhere without gas. And we'd lost the GPS signal so, you know, we were now clearly in the middle of absolutely East Jesus no where.
Still, we kept winding our way up the road, higher and higher, with NeverNakedBeth now focused solely on the gas guage until she suddenly said, "Turn left! Right here! Now!!"
I was not about to argue with her. I had survived the head spinning. Not sure what else might happen if I did not do as I was told!
We parked. We walked. We hiked. The dogs, well, they were in absolute bliss. No, really, absolute bliss. We found three lakes. Lakes that might as well have had neon signs shouting "WELCOME LABRADORS!" right at the waters edge because my dogs, when they even got the slightest hint that they were in the vicinity, did not even hesitate to just dive right in. In fact, at one point we had "lost" Stella only to find her far ahead of us swimming laps around one of the lakes. Literally. Laps. I do think that in a previous life Stella was Gertrude Ederle. No really. If I threw her into the English Channel, the dog would swim to the other side, parler avec les Français because she is fluent in seven languages, swim back and then ask me if she could, pretty please, do it again?!
It was, in terms of a dog's life, a day that would get ten wags. Maybe even eleven.
We coasted home, on our 1/8th tank of gasoline, me assuring NeverNakedBeth that it was all good, that I'd just "believe" that we'd make it without incident (and of course we did!). The dogs and I are headed back up there tomorrow. We're unplugging. We're going to spend the weekend swimming laps. Because if we can't live at the beach, we can certainly, absolutely, celebrate and enjoy the majestical beauty with which we're blessed right here. Celebrations are not just for birthdays, you know. Life is worth celebrating every day.
Love,
Mama
P.S. Internet? You all need to know, that this NakedFriday photo was all NeverNakedBeth's idea. True story. She absolutely insisted we do it and celebrate the beauty of Utah. And...in the making of this fine photo for you we both nearly caused an entire cadre of Japanese tourists to snatch up their passports and busywalk as fast as their legs would take them right to the SLC airport for the first plane back to safety and sanctity of Japan where you can hike in the mountains and not worry about rounding a corner to find a very naked woman standing there CELEBRATING NATURE'S BEAUTY! My apologies to the tourists. It's America. Land of the Free, home of the Naked.
