Moo.

We're leaving in four days for Europe and the majority of my clothes look like feed bags held up by nothing more than a belt large enough to circle the globe twice. I need at least one pair of jeans that fits to get me through the trip. Europe doesn't appear to have fatties, so I can't just pick some up when we arrive.

I headed to the mall late last night and furiously tried on jeans, trying to figure out my latest size in the hour before closing. I enjoyed messing with the Nordstrom sales clerks. They apparently are not used to people over estimating their sizes, having absolutely no idea what size they are. They were doing a lot of running between my dressing rooms and the racks. They do however, like to tell you that every pair of jeans will stretch, but only in those one or two places you actually need it to stretch and totally everything else will fit perfectly just like it does for the 5 seconds you are wearing it.

I wasn't buying what they were selling - $120 is a lot for a pair of jeans you hope won't fit for more than a month or two - so I headed down to Lane Bryant. For those of you who get more exercise than just walking to the vending machine, that's a store for the pleasantly plump (and then some). 15 minutes until closing, but at least I finally what size I was, right?

Apparently people have issues with knowing their size. Lane Bryant has now revamped all their jeans sizes. Are you a red? Blue? Yellow? (Can't we just get a little more realistic and call it Pear, Super-Pear, and Apple?) Now that you have that figured out, are you a 1, 2, 3...or an 8? That's right. If you were a 28 before, you now have been upgraded to an 8.

While I was there I picked up a sweater to wear to my work event on Tuesday. I thought it would jazz up my standard meeting planner black suit yet still be comfy enough to work in:

I showed it to Barry this morning as we were getting dressed. We were taking Marielle to see where our milk comes from so I had no intention of wearing something so nice when I knew I would be sitting on hay and strolling through manure, but I just wanted to show him as I was unpacking my bags. His opinion?

"You probably shouldn't wear that. Someone might mistake you for a cow."

Time to order him a new shirt: