On this particular evening, Brett took Grace fishing with Papa Clint, so I took Pippa to Dad's for dock time. Mom was out at band practice so Dad and I thought we'd have a father/daughter supper. When Pip and I got there, Dad wasn't home, but Lee and Olivia happened by on the golf cart. Buddy, Pip, Lee, Olivia, and I all headed out to the dock. It was low tide. I hadn't thought to check first. No matter. Pippa leapt off the dock into the shallow water without thinking about how she'd get back up. The tide was too low for the dog ramp.
Lee shuffled Olivia in his arms as he lowered the ramp anyway. I pulled Pip onto the floating dock by the scruff of her neck and then coaxed her onto the ramp from there, but the rope gave way and the ramp splashed down into the water. Pip fell back into the water but managed to climb the ramp pegs like a ladder to get back onto the dock. Lee passed Olivia to me while he tried to retie the whole rig. Livvy did not want to be held by Aunt Lu and Pip took a sudden and fiendish interest in Olivia. Pip leapt up to sniff Liv and dug her little claws into my leg for leverage. Livvy cried and I played defense as Pippa tried to climb me like a tree. Meanwhile, Lee worked to pull the ramp out of the water by a rope no thicker than an ink pen. Fat Budds took it as an invitation to inspect the ramp and walked out to the end of it and sat down. Lee struggled to hang on. I tried to convince Budds to come back to the dock by dangling a whining Olivia in front of him like bait. Pippa licked at Liv's toes and tired to pull my pants down.
"This is all going horribly wrong." I said to Lee as he endured the full weight of Buddy wound tightly around one hand. Buddy wouldn't budge. Lee couldn't get enough slack to tie it off.
"I'm going to have to let go," he finally determined, and he slowly lowered Budds into the shallow water. Seeing Buddy in the water, Pippa lept from the dock into the marshgrass and swam over to greet him. The thrill of it gave both pups the zoomies and they swam from the dock, through the pluff mud, up onto the oyster beach between Ari's dock and ours. Lee and I smiled at each other and said, "Well that's not good."
The only hope was to get the dogs to follow us back towards the house. We could pull them out of the marsh near the yard, and anyway, Lee had to get home in the next 10 minutes. Pippa bounded through the marshgrass like a gazelle leaping across an African plain. You'd hear a rustle in the grass and then she'd spring up and out with all four legs perfectly straight, as though she'd jumped from a trampoline. Then she'd disappear into the grass again. She did this so furiously that she had to stop to catch her breath which is something I have never seen her need before. She barreled alongside the dock as we walked back but Budds had turned obstinate. He pretended he could not hear us and ambled off towards Ari's dock. We'd fuss and yell and Budds turned a blind ear.
But Lee had to get going and I had to catch Pip. We left Budds in the marsh and walked back to the house. Lee and Liv hopped on their golf cart and headed for home. I tied Pippa to the patio, gave her a quick spritz to keep the mud wet (much easier to clean off if it never dries), and set out to retrieve Buddy.
Moments before I'd arrived at his house, Dad got a call from a friend of a friend who had pounds of fresh shrimp for sale at a great price. No direct descendant of Sadie Union can turn down a deal, so Baba Ganoush set out to collect discount seafood. He happily arrived home with 50 pounds of shrimp that needed beheading and freezing, and fast! He happened to pass Lee and Liv on their ride home and he instructed Lee to dump the baby and come back to help with the shrimp.
Dad lugged in the cooler of shrimp, put on some 70's rock music, and layered the kitchen counter with newspaper. He cracked open a cold beer, set out a bagging station, and settled in to peel. That's when he noticed, way out in the distance, is that Laura running through the marsh grass?
I'd kept sight of Buddy until he rounded the peninsula on the other side of Ari's dock. Though I called for him happily as though I was not infuriated by the blatant ignorance, Buddy was deep in his imagination, hunting for buried treasure along a forgotten seashore. I jumped into the marsh myself and ran through the reeds as they stung my legs. I thought if I could get close enough to Buddy, he'd let me join his adventure and then I could lure him home. I haven't run through the marsh grass in many years and I'd forgotten how warm and muggy it is in it's thickest parts. I dodged oyster shells and leapt over little streams and scrambled onto Ari's dock for a better view. I yelled once more for Buddy and his head poked though the grass to look at me. He was too far away. I couldn't catch him without having to swim. That's when I accepted that Budd's knows the way home - I just had to hope that he wouldn't tire himself out before he got back to land. I jumped down into the marsh to head back when I heard Dad shouting my name. He was scurrying down Ari's dock. I told him the whole story and we thought we'd take the jet ski out to fetch Buddy.
"I'll go get the jet ski ready. I need you to put the shrimp back in the cooler and then come back out to the dock to help me get the jet ski into the water." We split from Ari's yard. Dad went back to our dock and I went into the house to cool down the shrimp. I sprayed Pip with the hose again on my way back out to the dock. She was visibly put out with me. Dad and I heaved the jet ski into the water and Pops jumped on to find his furry friend. I watched the marsh grass for movement and noticed our neighbor Jeff was now scurrying down our dock.
"What's going on? I saw you in the marsh?" he said to me, so I told him the whole story too. Just as Dad passed Ari's dock, we saw Buddy sitting on the beach, resting from his wild time. He was tired. He opted to be deadweight as Dad tried to pull him out of the water and onto the jet ski. Lee arrived on the dock as well.
"What happened? I saw all the shrimp. And Pippa. You weren't in the marsh when I left." Aided by his misfit search and rescue team, Buddy was hoisted from the muddy shallows and brought back to dry land for a bath.
The fellas went inside to admire Dad's shrimp bargain while I washed the petulant pups. Buddy was exhausted. Pippa was ready for more. I corralled them in the playroom to dry - they couldn't be trusted loose in the yard - and finally came up into the kitchen, ready for things to go as planned. Dad had somehow conned Jeff and Lee into the beheading and Jeff's wife, Laurel, had joined for the fun of it. We listened to music and told stories and googled proper shrimp freezing techniques.
Father/daughter supper night turned into a real adventure and everyone involved has several pounds of shrimp in their freezers.
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