Glamorous Life in the Making

Tempest Chronicles Day 8

I’m getting a tremendous amount of side eye from Ed because his walk was cut short this morning due to the fact that the elderly gentleman who had the end of his leash needed to make it back home before the call of nature became a public debacle behind the neighborhood library.

As a devout bibliophile, I cannot even allow the thought to enter my mind and there is no Emily Post recommendation for such a societal mishap.

We did manage to make it as far as to where “the supermodel nightmare” happened a couple of years back with Ed’s adopted brother Otis, who has been asking me why he hasn’t had a mention in 8 days of chronicling.

So I guess it’s time…………

Otis is a black and white French Bulldog who came to live with us around Halloween in 2019. At the time we had 2 little girl dogs who have since moved on from this physical coil that were divas in their own right.

The night we met Otis at the bulldog rescue, we had to bring him home to insure a smooth transition from 2 dogs to 3. As everyone was scampering around chasing and barking and such, I poured myself a glass of wine and sat on the floor to join in as much as humanly possible. It was at this point that the heretofore unnamed Frenchie made a direct line to my glass and started lapping the cabernet with such a canine fervor that I decided then and there that he belonged in the family and shall be donned “Otis” like the town drunk in the Andy Griffith Show.

Clearly Otis resents this because he hates me. He actually hates everyone but Tom. If I come home and Otis is in bed with his favorite human, he will raise his head and stare at me as if to say: “What are YOU doing here? Things were SOOOOOOO much better before you arrived. Bring your hands over to me so I can bite them!!”

Which is why the “incident” stands out so much in my inner video of time spent with Otis.

It was a delightfully crisp winter afternoon, the kind that you remember fondly as the warmth starts to build in June, just cool enough to need a jacket. On the corner of Burgundy and Pauline there’s a house that we all call the Taco Bell Mansion. It’s design and color aesthetic is about the same as the fast food chain used to be. It does however have some various rather random art on the grounds. There’s an old gray haired black man sculpture fishing on the left corner roof, some totem pole looking giant birds scattered amongst the foliage of asparagus ferns and mature crepe myrtles and on the front post sidewalk parkway, there’s a 2 headed crocodile bench that has patinaed into a pretty shade of funky green.

That’s ground zero.

As I approached the front of the house with a trio of small but opinionated dogs, there was an unusual flurry of activity from several young ladies in various stages of dress, laughing and squealing with delight. Long faux fur coats and thigh high boots, clunky retro shoes, a couple had a beehive hairdo and one was a dirty dishwater blonde, the whole scene resembled backstage at a Versace catalogue shoot I imagined. A couple of women were standing to the side of the hive, makeup pallet in one hand the other one holding a brush poised to touch up the stray sallow blotch of skin. About 3 feet from the center of activity a tripod was set up with a textbook stylized man, in a beret and camel colored knit scarf, gently directing the gals into the shot.

He was the photographer, clearly a sensitive artist, to be more stereotypical a cigarette holder would need to be involved, but I can’t say that I saw one.

The 2 girl dogs were slowing down and taking it all in, but Otis pulled me quickly over to my left and on the edge of the pavement, at the start of the dirt where he abruptly went into “the squat”.

This of course meant that the kohl eyed models had to scurry to the right, out of his way. It also meant that the whole set up from the photographer had been ruined and he had to exasperatedly exhale and step away from the camera, head in hands as everyone else looked on with a strained grimace.

This of course would have been bad enough in it’s own right but I haven’t made mention of the fact that Otis loves his knots. The big, ropy twisted, brightly colored, matted, supposedly indestructible dog toys that he gnaws and pulls and generally destroys all over the house. I figure it’s his way of lashing out at the injustices of a society that would put him in a world where he had to share his human with all the things that force him to leave the human’s side.

I look around at the 7 person conflagration that’s reverberating out from us and nod apologetically trying desperately to get a bag out of my pocket and keep a hold on my 3 dogs who are in various stages of excitement. The tension is pretty thick, but for some reason I can see the models looking even more appalled, one is even pointing and I think: “Clearly you don’t have dogs.” but when I look down, I see that a neon green quarter inch piece of rope is hanging out of Otis’ nethers and it’s not wanting to plop out. This new fold has deepened my embarrassment and has caused him to look up at me with a “HELP” sort of plea on his pushed in face.

Of course the respect and admiration of my dog is ten times greater than any that I would have for a Richard Avedon, Cindy Crawford, gaggle of wannabes so I straighten my head and bend over somehow still managing to maintain eye contact with the glamorous septet and quickly pull the offending chunk of thread free. Otis gives a sort of relieved body shake and quickly snaps at the photographer as if to say: “Back off pal.”

Without acknowledging the incident, I tuck the used bag into my jacket pocket (Thank god it was intact) and nod a polite good by to the morally outraged gathering, never looking back but quickly rounding the corner so as to shorten our exposure.

I always hoped that I would run across a print ad for some sort of local art supply or maybe a thrift store that would reassure me that this was not just a figment of my imagination, but alas, none have materialized. Maybe the whole group was so dismayed by the incident, the entire production had to be shut down and moved to a space with a more controllable environment. That of course is gonna be hard to find in a city where 6 months of the year is spent debating whether or not we’re going to be washed off the planet and the other 6 are spent carousing to the point of forgetful abandonment.

Let the mayhem begin…………..

Vitals: 83 degrees with a 76% humidity makes it feel like we’re trapped in a greenhouse covered in poison oak with an hourly release of the dengue virus being administered by our high school nemesis.

7 days down

176 to go………..