A lip-smackin' St. Valentine's gift, and eye candy, too

I snuffled into Mom's grocery bag before she could unpack it, and pulled out a big, gorgeous bone from Castor & Pollux, via our favorite market, Tilly and Salvy's Bacon Street Farm.

So I received my Valentine gift early, but that just means I can be chewing on it while checking out the competition during Mondays's hound group at the Westminster Dog Show. Two new breeds are crowding the hound field this year: the Bluetick Coonhound and the Redbone Coonhound. My breed, of course, the venerable American Foxhound, first entered the field in 1877, the very first year the show was held.

Unfortunately, we have never won Best in Show. Hounds rarely do: remember the big to-do when Uno the Beagle won in 2008?

Perhaps it has something to do with my breed's lack of affinity for grooming (see my recent piece on pedicures). Certainly it has nothing to do with our natural beauty. I cannot predict, alas, a BIS (the au courant know that's Westminster shorthand for Best in Show) this year, but were I a candidate, things surely would be different.

The horror, the horror! Or, you broke it, you bought it

Last week, I officially opened the Halloween season with a trick at Tilly and Salvy's Bacon Street Farm: noting a seasonal display of scarecrows sitting beguilingly on hay bales, I immediately ransacked same.

As I seized the scarecrows and prepared to shake the stuffing out of them, I knocked over an adorable ghost-shaped votive candle holder ($2.99), also perched on a bale, and smashed it to smithereens. Oops!

Mom picked up the pieces and went inside to admit my crime. Rick came out to admonish me (actually, he very kindly let it go and petted me). However, I was so entranced with those stuffed creatures that I shook a few more on my way home, just to show them who's the boss.

Best places to nap

One thing about me: I can nap anytime, anywhere. I do have my favorites, however, so here's my list of the best  places to nap (summer version).

1. Home, sweet home, outside by the pond, water trickling, birds singing, me snoring. Bliss.

2. My dirt pile. Cool, dusty, and tick-free  (photo not available).

3. Carrie's lawn—the best grass in the neighborhood (don't tell her husband!)

4. Rocco's lawn—second-best grass, but it has Rocco p-mail on it. Very nice. Good for a short break just before getting home.

5. Tilly's Bacon Street Farm. Cool cement, shady, clean, plus I get to meet everyone who goes in or out—they have to step around me. The numerous compliments are excellent for my ego.

6. Lilja school field, under the trees. Always some good sticks to munch on.

7. Lilja playing fields. Good for swallow-watching (that's a bonus for Mom, because my eyes are closed).

8. Wellesley Booksmith used book cellar. Took a mid-fiesta siesta there yesterday, in fact. Rejuvenating.

9. My sister's bed.

10. The guest bedroom.

11.  Why stop at 10? White shag beanbag.

12. Etc., etc., etc.

Halloween howliday

Boy, did I need that extra hour of sleep last night! I had a whoop-de-do Halloween that knocked me out a bit early, still wearing my cape.

I surprised everybody by agreeing to wear a costume; moreover, I greeted our first trick-or-treater, a five- year-old in a dinosaur costume who fortunately has two beastly dogs of his own, with an all-out unearthly howl. It was awesome. Then, when he was leaving, I grabbed his dinosaur tail.

I’ve come a long way since my terrified encounter last year with my neighbor’s vampire lemonade-blood stand. Here I am acting rather vampirish myself toward an unsuspecting trick-or-treater.

Did you check out Tilly’s haunted house? I didn’t, but I took a long, slow look at the field full of life-size pumpkin people. It took me a while to get comfortable, but before long I was pulling off their wigs and hats with aplomb. Unmasked, or rather, unbewigged, they weren’t really that scary.

On top of spaghetti...

OK, so it was rigatoni, and the meatballs—there were about a dozen—weren't on top of anything, yet.

Dad left a pot of sauce and meatballs on the back burner tonight while he went out to shoot a few hoops. Mom wasn't home, having taken my sister to her singing audition. I was feeling a bit abandoned, you might say. Dad usually gives me a bit of meatball for a special treat, so I figured, why not help myself?

Not sure how I'll feel tomorrow, but they sure tasted good. And my family? Well, they had to make a quick run up to Tilly's for dinner. Their chicken parm tastes just like homemade, or so they said. Somehow, I was too full to try it.