Yesterday it rained. It started around midnight and kept going.

Chris loves weather, so he actually woke me up at 12:15 AM to tell me it was raining. It kept raining until I drove to work. And then it rained all day.

When I can home again, the rain had slacked a little. Chris came out and joined the dogjoy at my arrival.

Chris is more subtle about welcoming me home. Usually it’s “I’m busy, I can’t talk.”

“But I just got home, can’t you give me a kiss?”

“I’m in the middle of placing orders, and if I stop I’ll lose my place. I”m trying to get work done!”

okay fine. He does work hard. So I leave him alone and go back to watch something on Tivo. Just exactly the time I get involved in a show, he comes and joins me. Not to kiss me, he sits across from me and tells me all his troubles. Hugh Laurie on House is paused in a strange face and my husband is telling me about the contentious alliances between the ship manufacturers. It’s a very reliable occurance.

But not yesterday. He came to see, because he was concerned about the dog.

“It looks like the rain has let up. I should take the dog for a walk now.”

“That’s a good idea…”

“Then when we come back, we should give her a bath. She’ll be a little wet anyway.”

So he went to walk the dog, and I had to prepare for the bath. Not much to prepare, really. Just get towels out. I got the towels and then had a snack. By the time I was done with my snack, the rain was pouring.

I thought maybe I should get the car and go find them to get them out of the rain at that point. But I didn’t know where they’d gone. So I waited.

Chris came in with the dog and handed me the leash. “Take her into the bathroom right now, I don’t want her dripping everywhere.”

Now, we have a system for bathing the dog. Fill the tub with warm, but not too warm, water; have towels handy for drying her off; then strip down to our underwear so that we can get halfway in the tub to wash her. Chris does her body, and I do her head and am responsible for keeping the water fresh and the rinse cups for both of us filled.

Lucy Dog is no dummy. When she sees both of us in the middle of the day in our underwear, she knows something is up and it’s time to run.

But we didn’t have time to get stripped to our underwear, and she was already in the bathroom, wet from the rain and wearing her leash. Not something that had every happened before; she wasn’t sure of the protocol. I quickly started running some bathwater and took my clothes off. Chris was putting his wet things out to dry somewhere in the house and he got down to his underwear and joined us.

Lucy saw both of us in our underwear and got the idea. She jumped in the tub.

It was easier to wash her in her pre-moistened state. Good thing, because we’d gone too long without washing her and she was very dirty. She’d been in a state I call “Filthmuzzle” for at least a week.

Afterwards, she jumped out, shook herself mightily and ran around the whole house to dry herself. We’ve learned to lay a towel down on the rug, and she will rub herself across it to dry off.

Now she looks very pretty and curly. No more filthmuzzle.