Entry #262
May 26, 2012
Hello Everyone, it’s me, Wimsey, coming to you from Fleet
Week filled Manhattan’s Upper West Side
where tall ships and Navy craft have been plying the Hudson River and offering
a strong deterrent to invasion by New York’s historic enemy, New Jersey. My human Maria and her friend Elizabeth can
rest easy with the might of the U.S. military protecting them from invasion by
the big hair and bigger jewelry on the other side of the river (I too have big
hair but since it ends up all over the clothes, furniture and rugs of my humans
it is not as offensive as the New Jersey kind—except perhaps when Elizabeth
forgets to vacuum the rug before she does yoga and ends up looking like a yeti).
But we bloodhounds were not always such lilies of the
field—we have been renown through history for finding things:
Prehistoric times:
Bloodhounds find game. Humans chase game. Humans kill game. Humans transport
game to campsite. Humans cook game. Bloodhounds find game.
Ancient Rome: Man
loses toga. Bloodhound finds toga. Man must buy new toga.
Medieval Times: Peasant
is proud owner of root vegetable garden.
Bloodhound finds root vegetable garden. Peasant is proud owner of holes.

American Revolution:
Thomas Jefferson writes Declaration of Independence.
Bloodhound finds Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson re-writes Declaration
of Independence. Hound inspires reference to inalienable rights of life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness. Or tasty parchment.
Modern Times: with
game now found in the supermarket and true loves on the Internet modern
bloodhounds learn to find new things:
Food left on counters,
Food left in garbage bins
Food residing on dinner plates
Foods residing in refrigerators that have been left open a
fraction too long
The best spot on the couch
The best spot on the bed
The best spot on people’s laps (generally the ones on top of
the newspapers)
Electronic devices that you’ve tried to hide
Dirty laundry, (particularly socks and underwear)
Unopened mail (preferably those containing checks)
Plastic water bottles (preferably those that people are
still drinking from)
Books (preferably unread)
Horse poop
Raccoon poop
Poop of other animals
Ways to go under, around or through inconvenient barriers
such as fences, baby gates and doors
And of course, the #1 thing the modern bloodhound finds: new
ways to annoy and inconvenience their humans!
Maria has always thought that I myself would
make an excellent therapy dog, except perhaps for the part about learning to
obey obedience commands and not drooling on the patients or investigating all
the interesting smells in the hospital room or baying loudly when I get bored. But other than that, who would not want to be
immobilized in a hospital bed and see (and smell) me looming over their pillow?
Anyway, Sunday was a busy day all around—we ran into the AIDS Walk in Central Park and anywhere there are groups of people there are groups of people petting me, which adds to the enjoyment. Especially mine. Not that people didn’t admire Pluto also but he is such a little fellow that one has to bend all the way down to give him a scratch and poking people in the ankles is not as effective a way of getting their attention as poking them in the crotch.
But I am really looking forward to another aspect of the
weekend; someone gave Maria a small barbecue grill and my humans are all
excited about using it. Now the first order of barbecue business was a lengthy
discussion as to whether I would prefer barbecued salmon, barbecued chicken or
the traditional hamburger. But then the ladies realized that barbecuing is
right up there with driving cars and pumping gas in the annals of things that
New Yorkers don’t know how to do. So they bought a book. Really. (Somehow I don’t think they would have
survived very long in prehistoric, or at least in pre-pizza delivery times).
So having acquired a book—the title of which should be Barbecuing
for People with Evolutionarily Unfit Genes—the next obvious thing was to
acquire appropriate barbecuing utensils. Unfortunately when Maria ordered the
deluxe barbecue kit from Amazon she didn’t pay too much attention to the
details. What arrived was a barbecue set whose extravagant dimensions are more
suited to Goliath grilling a cow or two after a hard day bashing the Israelites
than to a couple of urbanites barbecuing for their Hound on a dainty mini-
grill. These are some serious barbecue
implements. Wimsey size.
In any case, this will be the first barbecue that I’ve
participated in to which I’ve actually been invited! (I am a well known “surprise
guest” at picnics all over Central Park).
And the good thing about Maria’s culinary experiments is that they have
a habit of ending up in my food bowl.
Of course the weather is not expected to
be very good—we seem to have skipped a season and catapulted from the cool 60s
to the humid 80s with its attendant chance of rain and thunderstorms—but I am
always optimistic that the meteorologists know as much about the upcoming weather
as I know about winning obedience titles.
Well I think I will leave it there. Hope you all enjoy the weekend. I know I
will—if I don’t like the food those plastic handles on the barbecue kit look
pretty tasty.
Until next time,
Wimsey, The Finder