It’s the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend. Kemba has just gotten me up, as usual, with his polite but insistent mewling — at 6AM. As
those of you who know the Beagle Man are well aware, this is not my time of day. Not by a long shot. It is, however, Kemba’s.
By 6:20 we’re heading over to Burying Hill Beach. It’s still dark, but this has come to be our routine. Before getting in the car I’d texted my friend Naince, who’d been foolish enough to tell me the day before that she and Jake, her black Flat-coated Retriever mix, would meet us there — didn’t matter what time. (She said then.)
I take a bunch of photos of the sunrise. B.K. (Before Kemba), you could count on one hand the number of sunrises I’d seen. The tide is high — up to the seawall — so we bail on Burying Hill, get back in the car, and drive to Sasco Beach in Fairfield, where we have more room to frolic. (He frolics. I trudge.)
Next stop: Dunkin’ Donuts on the Post Road by exit 19 for coffee. A large coffee. Then a gas fill-up at the Shell station at the corner of Maple. It’s 8AM. I get a “whoop” from my phone — text from Naince: “Woke up 2 seconds ago. See you at Burying Hill?” I text back, just a little smugly: “Been there, done that. Before 7.” I add a smiley face, to be slightly less obnoxious. And a sunrise-over-Burying-Hill-Beach photo, as proof.
Back to the house. Kitchen counter, having coffee. Kemba at my feet. I post yet another instagram of Kemba-at-the-beach. (All my posts these days are Kemba-here, Kemba-there, Kemba-doing-this, Kemba-doing-that.) Up to my study. Sit down at my desk. Kemba at my feet. Knock off a blog post. Take a satisfying chunk out of of a mindless project — my favorite kind: re-filing-and-garbage-tossing. Perfect activity for this time of day.
Hey, it’s already 10! I’m finally allowed to wake Carol! Believe it or not, until just about 6 weeks ago — that would be when I got Kemba — I used to sleep till 10 on Sundays, too. This shared ability to still sleep like teenagers is no doubt one of the ingredients for our successful 42 years of marriage. I tell Carol what I’ve already accomplished while she was still sleeping: The beach. Second beach. Coffee. Gas. Blog post. Filing-and-garbage project. Twenty-two likes already on my latest insta. (Yeah, I know — you young dudes get, like, hundreds. Hey, I only have 36 followers, so 22 ain’t bad. Why don’t you help me out instead of making fun? Doubleh50 is the handle.)
A few weeks ago I told Heather the Trainer about my morning dilemma: Kemba likes to get up at 6. Beagle Man likes to get up north of 9. Her advice? Train the dog. “Easier to train a puppy than to teach an old dog new tricks,” she said.
Made a lot of sense . . . but the old dog didn’t have the heart. Kemba is just too damn cute when he gets up. So playful. So . . . puppy. I’ve taken to calling him “Turbo Dog” because of his crack-of-dawn sudden energy blasts. It just seems wrong to try to force him back into his crate when he’s so primed to take on the day.
Hey, anyone want to join me tomorrow at Burying Hill Beach for a really cool sunrise?
LOOK FOR A NEW BEAGLE MAN POST EVERY THURSDAY. OR PRETTY CLOSE TO THURSDAY. COULD BE WEDNESDAY. OR FRIDAY. LET’S NOT GET TOO OBSESSIVE HERE . . . 
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YOU awake at that hour…. having trouble wrapping my head around that one! (But chuckling anyway!)
I remember in the not-to-distant old days when you would have let Kemba out, then gone back to sleep for several hours. Dare I say it: Progress? When I saw the pic of the sunrise I was instantly sure you had used a stock photo.
Nope. Photographed by Beagle Man.