Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #281

Entry #281

October 26, 2012

Hello Everyone, Wimsey here coming to you from the Upper West Side of Manhattan where the metropolis is abuzz and agog with extensive hurricane preparations. Normally at this time of the year I would be talking to you about Halloween and the uncharacteristically wise decision of my human Maria and her friend Elizabeth not to dress me up, but this year Halloween and its attendant canine humiliations has been superseded by the possibility of Frankenstorm hitting the hood.

But before I totally let go of the whole Halloween thing, many people are always curious as to why I am not in costume. 

Why I do not dress up on Halloween:

There are no costumes big enough

There are no costumes cuter than the one I wear every day

There are no costumes that my humans have a remote chance of wrestling me into (see: it took an hour to get me to wear a Santa Hat)

I strongly prefer shredding fabric to wearing it

When I am unhappy I get loud.  Very loud.

I give a whole new meaning to “stop, drop and roll” especially when in proximity to mud puddles and horse manure

People are excited enough to see a bloodhound, a bloodhound dressed as a bumble bee could get my humans arrested for disturbing the peace

It is my job to humiliate my humans not the other way around

 

On this latter point, I have to admit that when Elizabeth and I first got to know each other she was all in favor of dressing me up—something about payback.  This was promptly vetoed by Maria so Elizabeth has to content herself with being the curator of my Hat Collection (Beret, Santa Hat, Goofy Hat, Mickey Mouse Ears, Brown Antlers, Red and Green Antlers, Elf Hat, Happy Birthday Hat and Happy New Year’s Hat).

 

And of course Halloween is a spooky time of year when ghosts and goblins walk among us and make mischief. Like stealing clothing, moving possessions, digging holes and making food and valuable objects disappear.  And every October 31^st I can claim it wasn’t me.  And my extensive bone and animal parts collection means that Elizabeth’s apartment is pre-decorated for Halloween and my ladies’ predilection for wearing black means that they are also pre-decorated for Halloween  (if the pointy hat fits….).

 

And this Halloween we are likely to be visited not just by any storm, but by an appropriately nomenclatured, Frankenstorm. All this hurricane talk is reminiscent of last year and Hurricane Irene (which I dragged my humans out in, by the way) and so this year I am looking forward to another round of Hound Hurricane Festivities.  This largely consists of Maria and I staying over with Elizabeth (both my humans living under one roof!) and both of them monitoring me for signs of hurricane-related distress.  Last year snoring loudly was apparently not considered such a sign.

 

Maria and I live on the ground floor of a small building that was built in the 1880s and there is always a fear that it might flood in a hurricane.  This proved not to be the case last year but then again that storm pretty much gave New York City a miss so once again my humans are taking no chances of me being incommoded by moisture. Hurricanes at Elizabeth’s also involve large pans of cheesy lasagna (in case the City runs out of food and calories become scarce) of which I am inordinately fond.  Fortunately there is a liberal food sharing policy in effect aimed at boosting my morale and distracting me from all the noise outside.  I thought it worked quite well last year, although my humans were the ones who needed the distracting.   And what could be a better distraction than the assortment of adult beverages on hand and in hand into which I drool.

As you can tell I am pretty much a fan of hurricanes; perhaps this is because I have so much in common with them:

We both bring a lot of moisture

We both bring a lot of wind

We are both loud

We are both large

We both scare people

We are both Sandy (although I am also Muddy, Dirty and Gravelly)

We are both impossible to ignore

We both threaten to wreck your house

We both induce the drinking of copious quantities of cocktails

And as to this latter point, there is a drink called The Hurricane so I think there should also be a drink called The Hound except that the ingredients would probably be too disgusting to name and not appealing to drink The Wimsey on the other hand is a simple drink:  a glass of gin. A very large glass of gin. And on special occasions (like bath night) it is accompanied by two aspirin back.

But other than the hubbub of the impending storm, it’s been a pretty quiet week around here; but I did enlarge my scope of local acquaintances and admirers by ensorcelling two guys who work for Riverside Memorial Chapel.  My humans are worried—I get the folks at Grom to give me gelato, I get the people at Melissa’s to give me cupcakes and I get the people and the Boat Basin Cafe to give me cookies and bacon; so my humans are wondering just what exactly I am going to get the funeral home people to give me….

But although it was a quiet week, I managed to make it quietly annoying.  One of Elizabeth’s’ friends re-gifted a dried trachea and it was immediately borne upon me that the ideal place to work on a dried trachea is on the bed (bully sticks, by contrast should always be chewed on the oriental rug where bits can be drool cemented into the weave with stunning effect). Then yesterday morning Maria and I ran into my French bulldog buddy Pluto where we conducted a stereo rendition of “’tis better to hang out and do no business until our humans are late for work.”  It’s nice to have company when one is being oppositional and although Pluto is small he is mighty in this respect. And finally, today, before she came to take me out Elizabeth was handling shelter dogs for a photo shoot.  One of them (with a most alluring smell) had clearly been sitting on her lap, which meant that Elizabeth had to walk down the street with a giant Hound nose pressed into a place that ladies not on stripper poles do not usually like to call attention to, especially not with giant inquisitive Hound noses.

Well it’s a short post today—I have much to do in the way of hurricane preparation but I might be prevailed upon to post a hurricane update, so stay tuned and stay dry.

 

Until next time,

Wimsey, the Hurricane Hound