Behold.....

The Dog Door. I don't know who invented this thing, but give that woman (or man) a cigar! Sydney took to the concept of free access right away. In and out, in and out. Blu, on the other hand, took some persuading. At one point, we even had Jacob crawling in and out just to show Blu it was okay. Don't laugh...that's how we got him into his Igloo dog house when we first brought that home, too. Jake actually had to crawl inside and call Blu in after him. (Which made Jake getting out a bit of a challenge, but that's another story.) We've had this installed for about a week now and the dogs have adjusted quite well to it. Tomorrow we're going to do a "test run". We're going to leave the dogs alone all day while we check out the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco and the Dublin Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant in Dublin (Texas, of course). I think they'll be fine, but we'll see how Sydney does with his abandonment issues with us away for the whole day. Hopefully, we won't come home and find him sprawled out in our bed with a bottle of tequila and a pack of cigarettes, lamenting the fact that his family has left him.... (BTW, thank you to Scott for briefing Randey on the stupidity of taking a pet with us on our Mini-Moon. It really was his idea, as you so accurately surmised. Really, it was! lol)

I have to tell you about something we saw at a new restaurant here in town. They had just opened when this happened, and you could tell that they train their employees using a "repetition" method. The employee who was handling the waiting list wasn't at the door when we arrived, so we gave our name at the hostess stand. Shortly thereafter, the list person showed back up. We took seats near the entrance and watched as other patrons came in and were placed on the waiting list. The girl with the list asked the same questions to every single party that came in. "How many?" "Smoking or non-smoking?" (they still have smoking sections here) "Will you be needing a high-chair?". Yeah. The 2 men with the teenaged boy who came in were asked if they needed a high-chair. The man and woman who came in and asked for a table for 2 were asked if they needed a high-chair. The guy who came in all by his lonesome was asked if he needed a high chair. I thought I was going to fall off the bench laughing at the looks on their faces. They'd all sort of pause after she asked...and then seeing that she wasn't kidding, would answer "nooooo" like they were talking to the village idiot. Which maybe she was, who knows.

Some of you already know this, but it's not something I'm overly happy about myself; my husband is a Nascar fan. Yessir. Randey loves him some Nascar. Go figure.

As my father says, what's the point of this "sport"? You already know they're turning left at every corner and the only time it gets exciting is when someone doesn't. But whatever, it makes him happy to watch so who am I to complain? However, there's a couple of things about Nascar that just scream IRONY to me! Like the fact that their weekly qualifying races for the pole position are sponsored by a beer company. Uh-huh. What the heck does that say to America? "Don't drink and drive! But have a beer to celebrate driving the fastest!"???? Another thing, the drivers refer to themselves as "athletes". (Because sitting in a car going 200 miles an hour every week is almost like running a marathon, right?) But these "athletes" biggest sponsor was a cigarette company up until the '90's. Because nothin' says Athlete like a pack of smokes and a twelve pack of Bud (or Coors or whoever it is that's sponsoring the pole race these days), right? To (loosely) paraphrase The Bard...Nascar, thy name is Irony.
One more totally unrelated and nonsensical thing...why is the word "kidnap" and not "kidnab"? I mean, if you grab someone against their will, are you doing so to lay them down for their afternoon sabbatical or are you taking them in an underhanded and snatching manner? Stupid question, I know, but something that I wonder about. (Yes. I hear you. "Kari, get a hobby".) Fine. I'll stop trying to understand the evolution of the English language. It's probably too much to comprehend anyway.

P.S. Just as a matter of interest, how many of you know what a "curmudgeon" is? (Yes, I'm seriously asking this question.)

The Bra Olympics

Who says women are the weaker sex? Forget about the whole giving birth thing, forget about needing that degree in accounting just to keep the bills straight, forget about cooking, cleaning and organizing a household. Forget about all the things that your average, everyday woman does that would cripple your average, everyday man if he had to endure them. Because even if you take all those things out of the equation, I still say a woman is mentally and emotionally stronger than a man could ever be. And just how and why have I arrived at this astonishing conclusion? Well I'll tell you. A man never, ever has to shop for and/or wear a bra. Period. Talk about a Test of Strength! Bra shopping could, and probably should, qualify as an Olympic sport. First of all, not only do bra sizes differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, but they sometimes differ style to style within the same manufacturer (i.e., the Beautiful Benefits bra, size 38C by Vanity Fair, may fit so differently than, say... the Body Elegance, size 38C, also by Vanity Fair, that you may actually wear a different size in that style!). So to buy a new bra, you can't just waltz into the store, pick up "your size", then traipse on over to the register with it. No, sir. You have to pick about 450 different bras to take to the dressing room to try on. Six at a time. (As most of you women know, most stores tend to frown on you taking copious amounts of clothing into a dressing room with you so they limit the number of garments you can take at any one time). So say you "normally" wear a 38C...that means you have to not just find that size, but you also need to check out some 40C's, some 36C's, some 38B's and some 38D's. All in the hopes that one of those sizes will actually corral your girls into some sort of perky, figure enhancing style without actually causing grievous bodily harm to your shoulders, your back and/or to your girls themselves. 'Course, there are stores that have an "attendant". A person who will not only bring you different bras in different sizes, but will also assist you in donning said bras and adjusting the straps accordingly. However. This little chicken (i.e., ME) is not terribly comfortable with having a strange woman jerk me around while trying to snag "the twins" into a set of elastic bowl-like devices. (Heck, I'm not even comfortable with a familiar woman doing that, much less a strange one, but let's not digress.) If you're looking for two different types of bra (for example; a strapless bra and a sports bra) your work is pretty much doubled. Sports bras don't fit the same as a strapless. In fact, no two types of bra fit the same. And heaven knows, they have enough different types out there to torture a person with. So many, in fact, that simply deciding what kind of bra you need can be a mind binder. There's the underwire bra, the wireless bra, the demi-cup bra, the full cup bra...there's the padded bra, the shelf bra, the t-shirt bra and the convertible bra. There's also the minimizer bra, as well as the maximizer bra. I even saw a sign in the dressing room at Kohls that said "Discover our newest brand of intimate apparel....The Push-up Plunge Bra"! Say what? Push up and plunge?? My girls immediately started writhing in agony and I had to cut my shopping trip short just to go home and apply an ice pack to my chest. Oh, okay. That's a lie. But what kind of goofy name is that for a bra anyway? I mean, honestly. I won't even get into the strange visuals that crazy name inspired. Suffice it to say, I think someone down at the ad agency has a sick sense of humor and some idiot at Kohls fell for his joke.

Anywho, whether you call your bra a "Push-up Plunge" or a double-barreled slingshot, a "Live-It-Up Seamless" or a booby trap, the fact remains that shopping for a bra is not for the feint of heart...and actually wearing one should qualify a woman for a merit badge in Long-Term Torture Survival. I don't believe I've met the man who could stand up to the kind of punishment bra wearing entails. But in the interest of fairness, I'm willing to be proven wrong. You fellas, go ahead, strap on a Man Bra and wear it for a week or so. Then let me know how "weak" you think I am afterwards, okay? I'm just saying.