~Saturday~ Robert arrived at around 10:30, and we headed downtown to see the Dog Olympics, which is “a charitable event that is open to dogs of all breeds, shapes, and sizes. Medal events include athletic and non-athletic competitions such as doggie limbo, musical sit (similar to musical chairs), best beggar, best pet trick, Frisbee toss, doggie high jump, longest tail, wiener toss, ‘Roll over Beethoven,’ and the howling contest. NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine faculty members oversee the events and award prizes to gold, silver, and bronze medalists.”
We parked in front of The Roast Grill and took the R-Line over to Moore Square, where we arrived in time to see the 11:30 events, which consisted of in rings 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively: Musical Sit (small dogs), Look-a-Like, Limbo (> 50 pounds), and the Wiener Toss. We didn’t really see anyone competing for the Look-a-Like contest, though we did see a woman walking around with two little dogs that we thought resembled her. The only dog I saw in the Limbo ring was a short little thing, that was about six inches tall, and s/he just walked right under the limbo bar, which was set at about two feet high. I don’t think it was actually competing, as it definitely was not greater than 50 pounds.
We watched the most of the Musical Sit competition, which involved the owners walking the dogs around the ring and commanding, “Sit!” as soon as the music coming from a nearby boom box stopped. We watched a little bit of the Weiner Toss, which involved the owners standing facing their dogs and tossing a bit of a wiener at them, and then taking a step back each time until the dog missed it.
The 11:30 competition finished in about 20 minutes, and since we were starving and there were about 40 minutes until the next round, we walked over to Big Ed’s and had breakfast. Robert had eggs, bacon, and wheat toast, I had one of their huge pancakes, and we split a side order of Cheese Hashbrowns. Our server was excellent. She talked me out of ordering two pancakes, “They’re very, very big,” she said. “I don’t think you can eat two.”
I thought, “You don’t know me, girl,” but then she added, “If you finish the one and want another one, I’ll get you another. No charge.” As it turned out, not only was the thing huge like she said, it was also very, very thick. I ended up giving a little of it to Robert, and definitely couldn’t have eaten another one. I rewarded her excellent service with a 38% tip.
She saw our “Dog Olympics” wrist bands and asked a little bit about what it consisted of before adding, “I should take my dog over there. It’s half Pit Bull and half Rottweiler.”
We returned for the 12:30 round of games, which consisted of the Musical Sit (medium dogs), the Longest Tail, the Howling Contest, and the Frisbee Toss for Style (They had earlier Frisbee Toss competition for distance.) The Musical Sit was funny again, we only saw one dog with a long tail, we heard one dog howl, and the Frisbee Toss was surprisingly not very good, although it was clearly the most popularly entered event, and the most watched. Most of the dogs just didn’t do very well at it. And no, I don’t blame the dogs.
We walked back to my car instead of catching the R-Line, since it was a nice walk and the weather was beautiful.
At home, we worked on a somewhat difficult crossword puzzle, and after a while, my doorbell rang. It was my ex-next-door-neighbor who was “in the ‘hood” picking up some of the stuff in her house to take to Goodwill. It was a nice, short little visit—always a pleasure talking to Kathryn.
Potpourri
I like this video:
A friend sent me a link to this bra that is meant to be taken off.
I received an affirmation from a friend in the form of an e-mail that contained this phrase, “You’re a great guy with a beautiful mind and good heart.”
I received another affirmation from a friend who e-mailed me to say (among other things), “This morning I caught up on your blog and consider it a well-spent investment of my time as I thoroughly enjoyed every entry.”
She went on to tell me about some “thought-provoking conference sessions at the NC-ACTE Teacher Education Forum” that she attended recently, and that she was thinking about me in a couple of them. One was about “how to teach pre-service teachers about interacting with students who have same gender parents.”
She finished by saying that it has sparked her to do some research on how to teach students diversity in general, after which the affirmation came, “If anything comes of all this would you be interested in participating somehow if there’s a connection?”
It was pretty much dead at dancing tonight, particularly early on in the evening. There were just four of us dancing: Me, Rick, Carl, and Bill.
The theme for the evening was “Beer and Bears,” and there was a “Beer Pong” game that took place later in the evening. It involved bouncing a ping-pong ball, that sometimes landed on the floor, into a glass of beer, and if you got it in you drank the beer in the glass it landed in. That was considered winning.
I did not partake at all, but not because of the germ thing, but rather because I don’t care for beer when it doesn’t have dirty ping-pong ball residue in it, much less when it does.