HALLOWEEN IS COMING!

Halloween is not that many weeks away. Time to come up with a costume for my dog Macaroon.

Let’s review. His first holiday with me I created a caterpillar get up and paired it with a butterfly costume for his friend, the late great Dudley. We competed in the Carl Schurz Park annual contest as a duo. Macaroon gave a huge shake just as we approached the judges’ table and one of his antennae flew off into the helpful crowd. “A wardrobe malfunction!” I laughed. Of course we did not win. One friend is convinced this contest is rigged.

But that year a very talented photographer smartly set up at various dog costume events and wound up with models for her fabulous book Indognito. Ironically, Dudley the butterfly made it into the book. Macaroon did not. The caption for Dudley was the icing on the cake: “The caterpillar does all the work. The butterfly gets all the publicity.” So true. And triply ironic since I am a volunteer butterfly docent at the American Museum of Natural History. Tee hee.

The next Halloween Macaroon went solo as a Frenchman. I added the baquette with fabric from my stash, appliquéing a second, solid, fabric on top of the print which was a nice realistic touch I thought. Again we lost.

Last year I joined forces with my friend Lynne, an FIT grad and amazing costume creator. She has a Brussels Griffon named Gidget who is a pip and her muse. Gidget and Lynne’s costumes are prominently featured in Indognito and I always bow to Lynne’s greater skills. She suggested that Macaroon would make a good taco. And so I found the materials and whipped up a taco suit for him. Lynne lent me the tiny sombrero which totally made the outfit.

Unfortunately the Carl Schurz Park show wound up conflicting with the larger show in Tompkins Square Park down in the East Village and so we headed south, opting for the better show.

To my disbelief and delight, the taco won our group. Lynne’s fantastic mermaid costume for Gidget came in sixth! Although ironically we both won the same prize: dog beds that were half the size of my apartment. We both got the offering petshop to swap them out for beautiful leashes and we were very happy.

I know that Lynne’s mermaid was more worthy than my taco, proven by the results of the Huffington Post poll of dog costumes. The mermaid won and the taco didn’t even break the top ten! What accounts for this disparity? Macaroon’s schmoozing skills. He started down the line of five female judges, standing on his hind legs and pledging love to each with his eyes. Gidget, in contrast, has far too much dignity to work any onlookers. It’s a matter of style over substance.

So this year I suggested to Lynne that we try to come up with coordinating costumes so we can compete as a duo, or maybe even a group with our friend Terri and her Griff, Roxy. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been tossing around ideas and having the fun of debating them.

The winner for Macaroon regardless of what Lynne decides: (drum roll, please) He will be a stick of butter!! I have already ordered a yard of Kona cotton from Paducah. Online anyway the solid named “butter” looked too light yellow to read as butter. I come from a Madison Avenue background and authenticity is not always everything. How it reads is key. Especially because the butter stick has to be covered with white organza. (Hmmm. A trip to the garment district is in order here.) And that will make it seem lighter still. So I opted for a shade called “buttercup” which I hope will work.

I have no idea how I am going to fashion this thing to make it look square. Just that it’s a good idea. And I hope that Lynne does opt for making Gidget into popcorn—one of those red & white striped boxes. Won’t that be cute? Gidget with a kernel on her head and Macaroon with a “pat hat”?