Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #358

Entry #358

September 20, 2014

Hello Everyone, Wimsey here, coming to you as usual from the Upper West Side of Manhattan but ensconced for a long weekend in my secondary apartment several blocks away from my normal crib. My human Maria left for a long weekend on Thursday to visit her mother leaving me with her friend, Elizabeth, who normally only looks after me during the day when Maria is off at work.  Elizabeth is off at work too but in her case her office is conveniently located in her apartment and well within snouting and drool range of yours truly. And whereas sadly I cannot interfere with Maria’s work (at least not directly), I have free rein (or leash) to do so at Elizabeth’s. This week I took her to one of the out of the way pet stores where I had previously purchased my brown dinosaur and she tried to buy me off with a blue dragon—the theory being that I would amuse myself with the blue dragon and allow her to work. Like most theories concerning my behavior this one turned out to require some modification since the amusement consisted of me pushing the dragon at Elizabeth and squeaking it in her face.

Well I always have a tremendous time when I stay with Elizabeth because she is so easy to annoy and being annoying is one of the principal reasons for my existence. Or so I’ve been told.  Now one of the most important aspects of being annoying is understanding your target annoyee. For instance, I like to annoy Maria by being independent so she thinks that I don’t care about her and I like to annoy Elizabeth by being so attentive that she requires regular recourse to the gin bottle. Unfortunately Elizabeth had to leave me for a few hours on Thursday evening to go to an event at a Champagne bar in Tribeca that she claims was work related (in much the same way, I imagine that I might say an event in a butcher shop is work related) and I was most put out by this.  And whereas when Maria leaves me alone it’s a big snooze fest (literally) Elizabeth’s leaving me alone calls for some retaliatory action. Generally I like to move things around or shred some mail and such like just to let her know that she’s done wrong.  I also like to induce the guilt to which she is susceptible by being near the door when she comes in and then pointedly eating and drinking my untouched food and water.  But after she returned this time she inspected everything and nothing was missing or shredded so she concluded that maybe I am maturing.  That lasted until she went into the bathroom and found that the bathmat had changed its location.  Also that it had sprouted hair. Black and tan hair.

And then of course there are my nighttime activities.  I can confirm to anyone interested, that taking Ambien is ineffective when a Giant Hound is having an exciting dream and kicking the radiator or when he is sleeping next to the head of the bed and emitting periodic clouds of pungent digestive gases.  And then, as is my custom when staying with Elizabeth, somewhere near 7am I get up, flap my ears loudly, stretch, have a nice refreshing drink of water and then climb into bed with her to let her know that I am ready for my walk.

Both Elizabeth and I are sorry that we could not go to visit Maria’s mother as well, however.  We all did this several years ago and Maria and Elizabeth were reminiscing about our visit.  My favorite part was all the delectable Hungarian food I was served (Maria’s mother is an excellent and prolific cook and baker) and also having Maria’ s mother hand strip meat off of Buffalo chicken wings for me.  Elizabeth’s favorite memory is of walking down the long hallway at our hotel in search of ice and looking down and finding me quietly and, for the one and only time in my life, heeling at her side, sans collar or other Hound control equipment.  Then there was, the look on a fellow guest’s face as she emerged from her room to see Elizabeth walking a Giant Hound down the hallway by his dewlap instead of by a leash. She flew back inside. Maria’s favorite memory was of her mother refusing to feed me dessert crepes until they had been properly warmed up. But the hallway escapade ranks pretty high on her list too.

 

Also this week I experienced a “crise de nub” as the French would say.  In addition to noisy blue dragons, the other way Elizabeth tries to buy peace is by the liberal dispensing of bully sticks.  But I like to turn bully sticks into nubs and then throw them around and play with them and fling them places so that Elizabeth has to crawl around on her hands and knees to retrieve them.  Well this week I lost my nub and made Elizabeth hunt with me through my vast toy pile and under the furniture to no avail (nub hunting being another time wasting activity with which I plague Elizabeth’s life). My humans concluded that I had probably eaten the nub and forgotten about it because I am basically stupid. So when Elizabeth woke up on Friday morning I left the newly found nub prominently displayed in the middle of the rug for her admiration.  It will make her crazy trying to figure out where I found it.  Elizabeth immediately texted the exciting news to Maria that the errant nub had been found. It is a pleasure to be able to bring meaning and excitement to my humans’ otherwise boring and desolate lives. 

 

Well I have to apologize for being late with the post this week—Elizabeth started looking rather peaky last night so I prescribed a medicinal gin and tonic and had to monitor the results. Unfortunately all the relaxation was undone this morning because at about 6am I began having a vigorous series of dreams that required me to kick the bed repeatedly.  Then I’d wake up, flap my ears, fall back asleep and repeat.  I did climb into bed with Elizabeth as usual at 7am but by this time she was already awake so it wasn’t as much fun as usual.  We spent a lovely couple of hours down by the river and stopped for a muffin and coffee which I enjoyed very much and left a pool of drool to prove it.  There is talk this evening of mai tai’s and Forgetting Sarah Marshall which Elizabeth hopes will turn into Forgetting Wimsey Bloodhound and make her think she is back in Maui instead of on her couch with me.  As if.

Well it’s a short post this week since Elizabeth has huge piles of work to do which means that I have huge piles of work to do making sure that she cannot do it.  Oh, and lest you think that my being annoying is limited to my actual humans, think again. Last Saturday evening I was standing around outside my building “chatting” with some friends when someone leaned out of their window and shouted “That’s obnoxious.”  I don’t know, I think the sound of me is rather pleasing. Anyway…

Until next time,

Wimsey, The Alarm Clock Hound