A rainy day walk.

The dog needs to go out. He paws my chair leg and looks longingly at me as I finish my breakfast.
“Ok, Max. Ok.” I glance outside. It’s raining in that picturesque, dimpled puddle sort of way. Not ideal walking weather, but a walk in the rain could be fun. I turn to my daughter.
“Hey, Boogaloo, Max needs to go out. Do you want to go for a walk?”
“Go for a walk,” she seconds. After a pause she adds, “Get pants on.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
We run upstairs to get socks and, in her case, pants (I already had mine on, thank you very much.) and then run downstairs to get our boots. Her boots have little monkeys on them. Mine have umbrellas in pink, green, and blue. Highly appropriate. We put our boots on, zip up our coats, put the leash and harness on the dog, grab the umbrella, and head out the door.
Then we hit our first kerfuffle. Boogaloo wants to bring her stuffed dog, but she wants me to carry it. She wants to carry the umbrella. I tell her that if I have to carry the dog, I’m going to put it back inside. She reconsiders. Doggy gets stuffed in her pocket. Up goes the umbrella, and honestly, she looks like a little mushroom because the umbrella is wider than she is tall and hides everything except her legs.
We meander down the sidewalk toward the park. The rain patters on the hood of my coat, and I can see it making dark patches on my shoulders already. Max pulls me to one side so he can find the nearest tree. Some needs are very immediate. Boogaloo stomps past us at a brisk pace, and I begin to worry that she’s heading toward the playground. I don’t really want to spend that much time out here. It’s a little wet to stand idly by while she runs up and down the swaying bridge, up and down, up and down. Time for a mommy diversion.
“Hey, Boogaloo, come see the puddle.” I have no aversion to puddle hopping. In fact, if my boots didn’t leak, I’d do it myself. Boogaloo comes to investigate the puddle. It’s a doozy: all the accumulated water from three sidewalks and a patch of grass is funneling into one dip in the path. The water is at least three inches deep, and the puddle is several feet wide. It’s just too tempting. As Boogaloo leaps in with both feet and makes several splashes, I shuffle through it, plowing water aside and leaving a wake behind me. “Whee, whee, whee,” Boogaloo shouts. Yeah, kid, I know the feeling.
We go hunting for another puddle, and now I notice that the water from our big puddle is being funneled out into the roundabout and into a little creek bed between us and the nearest housing development. I look back at the park. There are several currents of water running down the edges of sidewalks, across the pavement, and into this little creek. There’s a depression in the curb so the water can get through. The whole park is subtly sloped so that all the water will run to this one point and travel down this dry creek bed rather than flood out the houses below us. I never would have noticed. What a marvel of engineering.
I follow the creek bed, and Boogaloo tramps along behind me crowing, “The water, the water.” The creek extends the length of the park and joins with an unofficial stream at the border of two other housing developments and runs through a little divot between them. That’s a lot of water for a little divot. I wonder how it all stays in.
Max takes this moment to finish his business, and as I bend over to clean up after him, the first drops of water run off my coat and onto my blue jeans. I straighten up and feel the back hem of my coat. Water wrings out in my hands and dribbles through my jeans to my underwear. Ew.
“Boogaloo, let’s go back.”
“Back,” and we tramp along until we get to the roundabout, where Boogaloo stops to splash in the puddle again.
“Boogaloo, Max wants to go back inside.” Max really wants nothing of the sort, but now the seat of my jeans is beginning to soak in earnest, and I can’t seem to keep my coat hem from touching me.
“No want it, Mommy. Puddles.”
Sigh. “Boogaloo, we are going to walk back now.”
She acquiesces. Then she tries to hand me the dog.
“No, Boogaloo. You wanted to bring him. You carry him.”
We make it to the sidewalk, and then she veers left toward the playground.

“Boogaloo, we are going home.”
“No, Mommy, slide.”
“No slide. It’s time to go home. Look, you can pick which path we take. There’s this one.” I point toward the short path that takes us directly into the apartment complex and home by means of two covered breezeways. “Or this one.” A slightly longer path through the trees which lets us out on our street. “You pick.”
“This one.” She points defiantly at the longer, wetter one. Then she tries to hand me her dog again.
We start wandering down the path. Between the clouds and the trees, the path we’re walking is pretty dark still, but it’s really not that much drier than the open air. Some places on the pavement are dry, but only because the trees catch the water and concentrate it elsewhere. Max forges on ahead, drawn into the underbrush by his ever active nose. I really don’t want to go into the underbrush, so I pull him back and turn around to look for Boogaloo.
She’s standing still, staring at the umbrella which she’s holding in front of her. I’m not sure what it fascinating her, but her hood is down, the trees are dripping on her head, the dog is pulling on my arm, and I’m losing patience.
“Boogaloo, let’s go.”
“Here, Mommy. Take doggy.”
“No.”
She tramps a few steps, kicks a puddle, and then pauses to rearrange the umbrella on her shoulders and the dog in her arms. She reconsiders, rearranges again, frowns discontentedly and holds out the umbrella. I take it and hold it over both of us. No, she wants it back. She tries to hand me the dog.
“No.”
We walk a little ways, and then she stops to rearrange everything again. There’s the slightest trickle of water by her feet, and she seems to want to make a puddle out of it. She jumps in it, but it doesn’t splash, so she kicks it a little and watches the water break around her feet. Then she sneezes, but that doesn’t signal the need to hurry up. Step, step. Pause. Step, step. Wander. Step, rearrange. Rearrange. No, I will not hold the doggy. Rearrange.
I walk to the nearest path lamp and stand beside it, pretending the that light can also make me warm and dry. The lamp itself stands about waist high and has a domed top, and I’m randomly reminded of the diabolical alien robots the D’aleks from Dr. Who. Is it ironic, cozying up to something that resembles a world-destroyer for light and warmth? A cold spot forms in the hollow of my neck, and the water that is soaking through my coat begins to trickle down my chest as well as my rear. No, ironic is cozying up to a streetlamp in the pretense of staying dry.
“Boooogaloooo!”
She hastens a couples of steps and rearranges herself. I am cold, dagnabbit, kid. Keep going. I wait. She comes a few steps closer and offers me the umbrella. I take it gladly, and we proceed in comradely silence for a few moments as I hold it over both of us. Then she wants it back. I don't fight it. I haven't got the energy to fight it. I try to think about warm things like hot cocoa and fresh baked cookies, but then I remember that I'm the one who has to make them happen, and I decide that I'd rather just crawl under the blankets and pull them up over my head. I want to be home.
We’re on the right street now. I can see our door. She sneezes. She tries to hand me the dog, but I take the umbrella and use it like a carrot in front of a mule. That’s right. You want the umbrella. Walk a little faster. Keep moving. Keep moving. Max tries to pull me toward an interesting smell, but I'm not having it. We are going in one direction and one direction only.
By the time we get in the front door, Boogaloo has caught my nasty, petulant mood. She tosses the doggy on the floor, sits down on the step, and tells me in no uncertain terms which parts of her are wet and need to be dry.
“Mommy, socks off. . . . Mommy, pants wet. Take them off. Take them off.”
I peel off her corduroys and toss them aside. She stalks up the stairs. As I peel off my coat and hang it up to drip, I think lugubriously of sleep and dry clothes. Why are walks in the rain so much fun again? Oh that's right, because it's so much fun to come in and be done with them.