March 21st, 2003
Dear Diary,
Master Eric took me down to the beach to play this morning. The weather is brisk, damp & foggy. The chilly, thick white stuff -snow they call it- that has been ubiquitous & deeper than I am tall for so many months was removed recently, only to be replaced with gritty wet muck. I think I prefer the snow & ice. The muck is doubly unpleasant because, firstly, it's wet and gross when one steps in it- & one can't help but step in it. Secondly, one is forced to get wet again upon arriving home, as Master Eric insists on taking me to the bathtub and rinsing the wet muck off with cleaner, colder wet stuff. I'm sure there is a reason to his seeming madness, but it is beyond me. At least the wet muck smells nice. The wet stuff with which he removes the muck hardly smells at all.
Down at the beach I wrestled exuberantly with my friend Casey, a big mongrel hound. (Some purebreds believe it is unseemly to cultivate relationships with mongrels, but I feel that such antiquated bigotry has no place in the 21st century. Besides, mongrel girls are cute.) Casey has come up with a new game. I lie on my back and he grabs me by the throat & shakes me. When I kick myself free he chases me down and grabs me by the throat again until I roll over. He calls the game "Pre-Emptive Strike". Strictly speaking, I think the nomenclature is inappropriate, as I had no intension of grabbing him by the throat before he seized upon me. However, nothing beats a good wrestling game, whatever one calls it.
I also chased a strange creature called a duck, which is kind of like a feathered squirrel. However, it disappeared by flapping it paws & jumping very high into the sky without coming back down.