Seriously though, think Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts, but for people and their dogs. Our dogs earn badges for things they have learned. And we get to spend time with other people who are as crazy about their dogs as we are (o:
If you want to learn more, the website is... http://dogscouts.org/
I know it is technically Dog Scouts of America, but we have members from several other countries, including Canada.
Ruth, I would like to attend the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, but unless I can find a hat like the women wear who attend the Kentucky Derby , I'm not coming.
When I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure
was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were
built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.
Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure
carved from a potato chip.
The mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the maternity
department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a
hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around
every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from
what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.
What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and
entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I
noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The
Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch
small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that if you
manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be protected from
shark attacks. Any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would
immediately suffer whiplash.
I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap
in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared!
Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while
to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.
The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman
is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I
realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view
assessment.
The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fitted those bits
of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from
top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized
cling wrap.
As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, "Oh, there you
are," she said, admiring the bathing suit.
I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I
tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape,
and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a
serving ring.
I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills and came
out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough
day.
I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked like a jellyfish
in mourning.
I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would
have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.
Finally, I found a suit that fit, it was a two-piece affair with a
shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable,
and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful
outcome, I figured.
When I got it home, I found a label that read, "Material might become
transparent in water."
So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this
year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!
You'd better be laughing or rolling on the floor by this time. Life isn't
about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain, with or
without a stylish bathing suit!
Do you ever wish you had a perfect response to someone's insulting remark ? My DIL nephew called the ski shop with a question about his ski. Peter is about 38 , very active and not an ounce of fat on his body. The clerk proceeds to tell him his ski is out of date but we have a new one for you guys, now. Peter says, and who are "you guys" ? The clerk says "You know, the guys that have gotten older, put on a pound or two and are out of step".Peter thanked him and said that was very nice of you and then said "I have two words for your boys in marketing, can you guess what they are ?
