Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #301

Entry #301

April 12, 2013

Hello Everyone, it’s me, Wimsey, coming to you from Manhattan’s Upper West Side where April showers bring May flowers which bring May showers of a different, and yellowish kind.   One of the great joys of spring is the upgrading of my toilet environment to include bright blossoms and fertile flowerbeds.   But spring has had very little traction around here this week—we’ve gone from winter to summer (two 80 degree days) and now back to a chilly winter rain.  As you can see in many of this week’s pics I am caparisoned in my red raincoat.

I very nearly was able to appear in yet another new seasonal coat—a yellow raincoat—but this has proven to be a subject of some controversy.  My human Maria dislikes yellow raincoats—she thinks that they make me look like a crossing guard (I do stop traffic after all) but her friend Elizabeth who, in spite of some major deficiencies in her own wardrobe which consist primarily of smelly jeans, worn sneakers and drool stained t-shirts and sweaters, enjoys buying me clothes--the flashier the better (because a giant, baying black and tan Hound in the middle of Manhattan is just not conspicuous enough). 

So this week while I was helpfully inventorying the merchandise at Petland, Elizabeth --brandishing a fistful of turkey--and a clerk induced me to try on a new yellow XXL raincoat.  And as the issue with raincoats is always the neck size which has to be capacious enough to accommodate my magnificent, but bulky, dewlap, she focused on that but neglected to assess the fit of the girth. I mean it’s an XXL so it should be plenty large, right? Wrong.  Apparently the term “large” no matter how many extra Xs are added to it does not begin to define my majestic proportions.  So I am sadly in my regular red raincoat, which is also a tad too small, pending the purchase of some Velcro strap extenders. 

Elizabeth was hoping to photograph me today with humans who are also wearing yellow slickers but this will have to be a pleasure deferred.  Of course the benefit of the red raincoat is that Elizabeth also has a matching one (which it has not been warm enough to wear yet) and when she and I walk down the street in our coats we create more than the usual pandemonium.

And speaking of pandemonium, the neighbor’s little doodle, Teddy, whom I love to hunt, came into the building this afternoon a few minutes ahead of me and I am afraid that the scent of him caused me to carry on to such an extent that people were coming out of their ground floor apartments to see what was making all that noise. If no one expects the Spanish Inquisition they certainly don’t expect a giant, excited, loudly baying Hound in the lobby of their Manhattan apartment building!

Elizabeth found the ruckus I was making extremely embarrassing which naturally caused me to redouble my acoustic efforts.  Embarrassing her is one of the many reasons that I enjoy spending my afternoons in her care. And I have now decided that not only is it Elizabeth and not my actual, official primary human, Maria, who should be responsible for putting in my eye ointment, cleaning my ears, brushing my teeth, soaking and or compressing whichever bit of me requires it, but also that she should administer any of the plethora of pills that I always seem to be taking.  The fact that Elizabeth gives me these pills in fat wads of turkey and yam has absolutely nothing to do with it. 

Elizabeth and I just fit together so well and read each other’s minds so nicely—like this afternoon when I detected that she was in desperate need of a nap and I decided that I was in desperate need of a noisy rawhide project.  There is nothing quite so relaxing when one is attempting to nap as the sound of a Hound loudly masticating and macerating a rawhide.

Anyway, as I guess you can tell, today was just one of those perfect days (at least for me).  Not only did I extort a significant amount of turkey in return for wearing my raincoat but I also managed to identify and track a small human carrying a large squeaky toy which I had every intention of relieving him of—and bayed at him to that effect—until cruelly prevented by kill joy Elizabeth who frowns on such activities.

And on rainy days such as today the water falling from the sky (which I know my humans are to blame for, no matter how much they protest to the contrary when I stare at them in an aggrieved manner) causes me to think about the water right here on earth and thus off to The Lake in Central Park I tow.  I love to watch the ducks and the geese and always attempt to get to know them up close and personal.  My humans, however, would prefer that I not get to know them up close and personal but today while Elizabeth was fiddling with the camera I took the opportunity to attempt to dive off a rock to accomplish these socialable aims.  It was a near thing but apparently the Park Rangers and their fat ticket books frown on poultry-seeking aquatic Hound missiles. I did manage to dip my toes in The Lake, however, and it was apparently just enough to give me that lovely Swamp Thing odor so beloved by my humans.

Anyway, then I got to crash another wedding at the adjacent Ladies Pavilion.  I met the bride and groom as they were about to enter the park and the bride gave me a lovely scratch until Elizabeth pointed out the potential inadvisability of scratching me whilst wearing a white wedding dress. 

Here is the groom and the officiant (and me) and here I am about to greet the bride and escort her down the path to her groom. Elizabeth explained to them that my deeply romantic nature and love of weddings causes me to want to get involved whether invited or not (and there are many a wedding video with a loudly baying, towing Hound in the background).

But if I walk a bride down the aisle (or the path) the lyrics to the wedding march should be adjusted:

Wimsey’s Wedding March

Here comes the bride (and her Hound)

Mostly dressed in white

Sweetly, serenely, smellily

In the soft glowing light.

Lovely to see

Her being towed to thee

Sweet love united

For an eternity of shared catering to the Hound.

Well you get the idea.

Let’s see, in other news I got to spend last Sunday night with Elizabeth because Maria came down with a tummy bug—probably from some garbage she ate off the street.  And the experience of annoying Elizabeth for a full 24 hours was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she gave me a bath. She calls it hygiene. I call it revenge.  In any case, it’s nothing that a few days or a dip in The Lake won’t cure. 

Well I think that’s about it for this week.  The weather is supposed to improve over the next few days which will make for some lovely walks and some productive strolls past diners in outdoor cafes.

 

Until next time,

Wimsey, Red Rover