The Square Peg

Did you know American Bulldogs were equipped with a built-in thermometer? At least, ours is. When Zoe's cold (or way too hot), her normally pale pink skin brightens up so much it begins to resemble the color of the stuff you drink when you're nauseated. Her display panel is pretty easy to read though: no pink color = no worries. Bright pink color indicates warmth (or cooling) is needed. And apparently, I have the deluxe model American Bulldog because mine also has a state-of-the-art 'tired barometer'. That handy, little gadget measures how tired she is. Its display is easy to read, too. The farther out her bottom lip sticks (compared to the top), the more tired she is. On a typical day, her skin hovers at a shade of very pale pink, and the barometer doesn't engage until around 9-ish each evening. (No, the barometer doesn't really have anything to do with this post; I just included that bit of information so you'd have it. You know, in case you ever need it. 'Cause I'm generous like that.)

I've never been a fan of animals wearing clothes. It creeps me out and makes me question the emotional stability of the person who wants to dress an animal like a human. It's not like they aren't already covered with fur, hair, feathers, scales, or whatever, right? However, Zoe the wonder dog has short, thin fur and she's always cold. It probably doesn't help that we practically keep our house cold enough to hang meat. (What can I say? We're a hot-blooded bunch.) I don't even fold the blankets that we keep in the living room any more because Zoe is usually lying on or burrowed under one of them. But Old Man Winter has finally come to middle Georgia and we've had to bundle up when we head out for our evening walks. (And you know it's cold when I wear a scarf AND gloves. I didn't even wear gloves when we went hiking in Alaska in December a few years ago!). And ever since OMW arrived, Zoe's skin has been bright pink.

So, I caved. I kicked and screamed all the way, but I caved nonetheless. Zoe the wonder dog now has 3, count 'em, 3 coats. The first one is waterproof for evening/wet walks. It's also reversible. You know, because we wouldn't want her to get tired of wearing the same, old thing all the time, right? Yeah, right.

The second is a fleece hoodie (with sleeves for her front legs) in red and black, so she can represent the beautiful Georgia Bulldawg Nation wherever she goes. You know, because she loves football so much. Yeah, right.

The third item is (ironically enough) a pepto-bismol pink sweater embellished with a snowman, snowflakes and bling. Yes, bling. On a dog's sweater. I know, it's totally ridiculous. But the dog needed something to keep her warm when we walk and when she lies around the house all day goes into her undercover stealth mode as she faithfully protects her turf every day, so she might as well look good, right? Yeah, right. Actually, I don't give a rip about the cute factor but I do give a rip about the ugly factor. And they had some *fugly* stuff out there for dogs. Didn't argyle die around the same time as Babe Ruth? Well, it should have. What is WRONG with pet apparel designers, these days?! There were designs and colors in the store that humans shouldn't be wearing, much less putting them on our beloved pets.

Huh.

So I guess if what they say about dogs beginning to resemble their owners after a while is true, then it stands to reason the old man/woman who likes to wear argyle would want to dress little Fido in it, too. And I would, of course, want Zoe to be trendy and fashion forward in her dress.

OK, so maybe I care a little more about the cute factor than I realize or am willing to admit. But I'm drawing the line at jewelry and all that other crap. Because it's ridiculous.

I'd like to go on record: I still think it's creepy. But since all the bald and/or balding men I know wear hats in the winter, there's bound to be some kind of wisdom in covering a non- or thinly-veiled outer surface that makes it copy-cat dog worthy.  (Sorry. I couldn't help myself.)

Being the good bloggy chick that I am, I'm posting a couple of pictures. Go ahead and laugh; I did.
Those little, tiny dots are iridescent sequins. Which is fancy-talk for "bling". Ridiculous.

Here we have Zoe (who is sawing some serious logs) in her fleece hoodie. Her waterproof, reversible jacket is above her.

















Have a ridiculously doggone good day, y'all.

Moose and I went to a college football game at the University of Tennessee last weekend. It was a belated birthday gift for him and we had an absolute blast. And this former cheerleader was in her element. I LOVED seeing all the fans dressed up. There's nothing quite like football, bands and fans in the crisp, fall air. Nothing. FYI: old cheerleaders never die, we just let out the waistbands of our skirts. And we always know how to accessorize our outfits to show our S-P-I-R-I-T spirit (clap, clap). My orange eyelashes and T's were rockin! BEHOLD:
I know what you're thinking. But don't hate me because I'm beautiful. *snorts*

My mom was here this past week helping me get some things ready for our move and I was so glad to have her expertise since she's done this overseas thing a couple of times. (I recalled how bossy she was when I was growing up and knew she'd be good at keeping me on task, but I swear I think that little woman carries a whistle and a whip in her purse.) Kidding aside, we actually got several things done this week that previously felt overwhelming to me. Moving overseas is a whole different ball of wax than a stateside move, lemme tell ya. There's still so much more to be done, but I'll get there. Eventually.

The house was in decent shape when Mom got here, but now that the sorting, cleaning, clearing & purging has kicked into high gear, walking into the house reminds me of Waffle House hash browns because everything in here is scattered, smothered, or covered in one way or another.

 Peace in your 'hood, people.

I am writing this from a hotel room in North Carolina. Moose and I are on our way to Virginia for an awards ceremony. We took off this morning and will be home in a few days. Before we left, Tasha said that while she hoped nothing weird would happen, she did hope I’d find something ‘blog worthy’ to write about while I was gone. So far, I have the following blog-fodder to share with you:

We left the house around 8:30ish. By the time we:
1) filled up the car with gas,
2) got coffee at the Starbucks inside Kroger instead of our regular favorite stand alone store because Kroger was within the ‘errand group vicinity’ and would save us a little time, mileage, and gas,
3) ran into the bank to close our local accounts so we wouldn’t be charged another fee for accounts we don’t use anymore,
4 & 5) went to get breakfast & say good-bye to Drewby,
6, 7, and 8) got about 5 or 6 miles down the road before we realized the camera was still sitting on the charger in the house, turned around to go get it and got back on the road…

it was 11. And what we saved by getting our coffee from Kroger got wiped out by numbers 6, 7 and 8. We weren’t in any particular hurry (don’t have to be there until tomorrow) but geez, Louise, the day just felt really long.

We stopped to eat lunch at Western Sizzlin. Boys and girls, can you say “Fashion Faux Pas Capital of the South“? I am not even kidding you. I think everybody in that place had bad hair, bad teeth, wore overalls, too much make up, or a combination of all of the aforementioned faux pas. Or is it faux pases? Faux pi? ??? Somebody please tell me what the plural form of faux pas is! I don’t know; I’m not French! I swear I thought I entered the redneck twilight zone. And the music! Oh. My. Word. It was slap awful. Old, annoying, psychedelic, whiney, shrill; you name it, they played it. Moose and I stood out like sore thumbs. For one thing, we were dressed appropriately (khaki shorts, t-shirt & flip flops for him; yellow tank top–which matched my yellow toe nail polish thank-you-very-much, blue jeans shorts and sandals for me. For another, we didn’t know ANY of the words to the songs they played. They did…and they were tapping their toes and singing along.

We checked into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express), did a little shopping at an outlet (didn’t buy anything), browsed around Target (again, we bought nada), and had a late dinner. I think our waitress was the gal that played Half Pint in Little House on the Prairie. Hey, don’t judge; the economy SUCKS!

We were almost finished with dinner when Tasha called my phone. Now before I go any further, you have to know that when I leave the house I always remind Drew about 3 (or 10) times that he has to watch Zoe carefully if she’s not locked up because she will get into stuff. She is, after all, still a puppy. I never tell Tasha anything more than once because she pays attention the first time and heeds my warnings and instructions. But today she must’ve gotten distracted by something sparkly which caused her to momentarily forget the one thing I repeat so often, I probably mumble it in my sleep: you have to keep an eye on Zoe. You should also know that my 3 (or 10) reminders to watch Zoe annoy Drew. Eh, you probably guessed that already.

Anyway…
It seems I will need to get a new spool of thread to replace the new spool of thread I bought for a sewing project. Tasha said the CSI team is still investigating how Zoe acquired it, but the ME’s (medical examiner) report stated it only took Zoe a few minutes to completely and utterly obliterate 36 yards of 100% cotton thread. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it? “How long does it take a puppy to kill a spool of thread?” Ha ha ha

You wanna know what’s really funny? It’s funny how Tasha was hoping I’d have something blog worthy to share and ended up being the material for said blog. Way to participate and not just spectate, Tashy! wOOt!

Will staying at the Holiday Inn Express make Brian eligible to perform surgery tomorrow like they advertise in the commercials? “No, I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Is the pillow inside the pillowcase that has “firm” written on it REALLY firm or is that just a marketing ploy to make me think it’s firm? And what's up with hotel drapes always being so ugly, regardless of the color, style, and swankiness of the hotel? Is there a rule about this type of thing? If so, how do we change that? Where are the Hotel Decor Police when you need them? Will tomorrow’s part of the trip bring more bad fashion? GASP! Will Moose wear socks and sandals without my noticing?!

Will the lunch people from Western Sizzlin read this blog and see the evil of their ways? Will they buy new wardrobes?

Or will they stalk and capture me, forcing me to wear overalls and let the polish on my toes flake off slowly as I’m tied to a chair and made to listen to bad music until my ears emit tears?

Tune in again to find out…same blog url, same blog BS.
The Square Peg would like to thank our sponsor, Tasha. Without her support, there might not have been a blog post today. We appreciate her generosity and will buy her Starbucks coffee (or tea) when we return home in hopes that she won’t pull her sponsorship from our program.

Is the best, most interesting place on the planet. Seriously!

We went to Atlanta today and ate lunch at WF between meetings. If you know me at all, you know I love to people watch. Talk about a melting pot...I could sit in there and be entertained for hours.

The most common thread shared by today's WF shoppers is their overall lack of tasteful fashion (pun intended). While it's safe to say that most WF shoppers care about things like organic, vegan, environmentally friendly products and packaging, there's one thing they don't seem to be too concerned with: looking good while shopping for that stuff. There were a few people in there whose clothing choices made me wonder if they looked at themselves in the mirror on their way out the door and thought, "this looks good". If so, I'd like to ask them what they were smoking and if the prescription for their glasses had been checked recently.

I watched with fascination as the nerdy John Lennon looking guy wearing socks & sandals ate lunch and chatted with his little boy, and the young adults two tables over, who started as a group of 4 and added more friends and chairs to the table as time passed, laughed, talked, and drank their smoothies. There was one guy in that group who looked like a cross between Frodo from LOTR, and Scrat from Ice Age. I know, right?!

And they've got hippies, nerds, trendy wannabees, geeks, greens, granolas, tree hugging nature lovers, gay people, straight people, people with ink, people with piercings, people with ink and piercings, people with ink but no piercings, piercings but no ink, and people with neither who shop in there. They've got folks who are barely dressed for public viewing and somebody running around in an overcoat...in the dead middle of September in the south. They've got little kids in there, and old people in there; sometimes together, sometimes not. They've got black, white, brown, yellow and suicides (in case you don't remember, that's all the flavors mixed together). They've got foreigners and natives, and foreigners who think they're native. There's nobody who looks "normal" shopping there. It's quite an amazing place.

I watched the casual/preppy guy eat his wrap for lunch and wondered what kind of work he did (he could've been a model for Ebony), and how old the girl was at the next table who was wearing the Grandma-style clothes (answer: waaaay too young to be dressed like that!). She had on red suede pumps with pilgrim-style buckles though that looked like she bought 'em from a second hand store, and I couldn't help but like them somehow.

I sat there in my trashy, sexy butterfly shirt, dragonfly choker and Levi's that barely covered my patent yellow sandals and wondered who was watching me watch them.

Entertainment while I shop at a quality store for quality products. I can't wait to go back. Who's with me?

Well, THAT was interesting...

I walked back into my office with my papers in hand from the printer upstairs. I sat down in my chair and heard my jeans rip. Yeah, from the top of the butt straight down to my upper thigh. I sat for a second basking in the unbeliev-ability of this situation. I know that's not a real word but I call it that because this is the SECOND time I've had a pair of Levi's split—and both split in the same place! Of course, last time I didn't know they ripped until AFTER I got home from church (where I usually sit on the front row) and Drew asked me about 'em. Come to think of it, I'm not sure which situation is more embarrassing…anyway…

I decided today would NOT be the day my co-workers saw my boo-tay, so I quickly grabbed my purse with one hand and slung it over my shoulder, and used my other hand to pull the back of my sweater down as I oh-so-gracefully cascaded out of the office and into my truck.

And it wasn't even 9 o'clock yet.

I hope this is not an indication of how the rest of my day is going to go.
Signing off now to check my calendar to see if I have time to shopping for jeans tonight.
Wish me luck...