Lulu is famous!  Okay, so maybe not.  But I feel like it!  I’ve just returned from a long weekend getaway of fun in the sun at Sea Island, Georgia with GR, my cousin Crockett, and the filthy rich island elite, and now my blog is featured on the front page over at iVillage.com!  Front page, bottom right corner.  Look for it, people!

That’s Lulu listed under the Travel section!  Of course, I like the post title listed there (Weinerschnitzel ahead!) much better than my own unoriginal post title, Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs, but Lulu is just not that creative.  In the least.

Anyhoo, I’ll fill you in on my Sea Island trip later this week!  Ciao for now!

I’ve decided that I’m a nervous wreck about driving in Germany, y’all.  And primarily because of this picture of a German intersection that I found on the internets:

Did you count the number of traffic lights and road signs, people?  Jeez.  How the hell am I supposed to know which one applies to me and the little Opel Astra that I’m renting?  The only sign that I understand is STOP…which I will do no matter what lane I’m in, probably to the detriment of my life and the CDW insurance that I declined upfront.

The little Opel Astra thing makes me a bundle of nerves as well.  I’m supposed to be getting this:

But, knowing my luck, I’ll end up with something like this:

Either way, I’m doomed. 

And just for fun, let’s review a couple of the road signs that I must study up on.

Igloo ahead…

Step on a crack break your mamma’s back…

Caution!  Mad-man ahead…

Go ahead…it’s okay to park half your car on the sidewalk…

Entering hurricane zone…

Okay to run down children playing in street…

Not okay to run down children playing in street…

Road ends.  Prepare to drown…

All frogs must yield to oncoming traffic…

Um…nothing more than an accident waiting to happen…

Illegal to yield to traffic in any direction…

And finally, Lulu’s favorite sign…

Weinerschnitzel ahead!!

Wish me luck, y’all.

As some of you might remember me telling you, Lulu is Amelia Bedelia reincarnate.  I no-likey anything to do with housecleaning.  Or cooking for that matter.  And that is why I am married to GR—the best housewifehusband in the world.  So, when I was so kindly asked to do a blog review for two competing dishwashing detergents, I almost broke out in hives.  I was going to have to wash dishes…in a dishwasher…for scientific research…and not just one load, but two!  Freak.  My biggest fear in life is GR actually finding out that I am fully capable of washing dishes and unloading the dishwasher, and therefore blowing my cover.  I see dish-pan hands in my future, people.

So, let me set up the fierce competition for you.

The Competitors

In one corner, we have Cascade Complete—weighing in at 4.68 lbs. and smelling like a fresh, floral bouquet.  Cascade has been ranked as the heavyweight champion for the second year in a row by an unnamed top consumer product guide.

In the other corner, we have Electrasol Advanced, also weighing in at 4.68 lbs. but smelling suspiciously like Pine-Sol.  Electrasol has been ranked as one of the top competitors of Cascade for several years running now.

The Tag-Teams

To begin with, I squirted (yes, squirted) mustard onto two dishes and let it dry outside in the blazing hot Georgia sun.  I wanted the mustard to be baked onto the plates, y’all!  I wanted it to be baked on like freaking glue!  I wanted the mustard to become one with the plate.  I wanted the competitors to really work for their money!  And I really wanted to take pictures of the tag-teams, but the thought of cleaning makes me dizzy, and I somehow failed to take pictures of both.  But I did take a picture of one…just to give you an idea of what we’re working with here:

Strategies

The heavyweight champion, Cascade, boasts that it

-cleans so well…no need to pre-wash!
-dissolves food!
-rinses clean!

The competition, Electrasol, claims to

-remove the toughest food stains from your dishes the first time!
-float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

Round 1: Electrasol is put to the test, throwing punches left and right and generally smelling up the place, but in the end is left looking a bit defeated in the face of the scorched-on mustard:

Round 2: Cascade comes out fast on its gel-like feet, wearing down the competition by using a combination of upper-squirts and fast hooks. And in the end, the baked mustard is dissolved into humiliation:

Decision

After careful consideration of both products, Lulu casts a unanimous vote—Cascade Complete is the reigning heavyweight champion of the dishwashing detergent WORLD!

So, enough with the silliness.  I really do think that Cascade did a better job of cleaning all of my dishes overall.  No spots or dried-on food to be found.  But to be fair, Electrasol did a decent job of cleaning as well…just not on the mustard stains.  And as far as Electrasol’s smell, well, someone should really think about doing some fragrance testing with that product.  But, seriously, what does Lulu really know about washing dishes anyway?

So, what’s your favorite dishwashing detergent?

Poor Billy Ray.  He’s not doing very well, y’all.  Several weeks ago, there was some sort of growth that started to appear under the skin of his front right paw…like in the wrist area.  See my very technical diagram of the wrist area:

Anyhow, GR and I thought that the growth was a fatty tumor, which is a non-malignant tumor that is very common in Basset Hounds and will sometimes go away on their own.  Therefore, we didn’t take Billy to the vet.  However, over the past several weeks, the alleged tumor started growing bigger and bigger until it was the size of a golf ball, which caused Billy Ray’s eyes to become even more bloodshot than they already are.  And he was beginning to get a bit lethargic, which is also very common in Bassets, but he was becoming more sluggish than usual.  Which basically entails not drooling with wild abandon and bleeding eyes when food is anywhere in the vicinity of a solid square mile.

So, on Wednesday of last week, Billy Ray went under the knife to have the tumor removed.  And it turns out that it’s probably not a fatty tumor at all, but a type of skin cancer called hemangioma.  But, we won’t know the outcome of all this until another week or so when the biopsy results come back.  And if it does come back to be hemangioma, I have no idea what the prognosis is for this type of cancer.  I’ve been trying to find related info on the internet, but you know how that goes…he’s either going to die a tragic death tomorrow afternoon or he’ll live to be 20.

Nevertheless, we’ve taken the approach that we’re just not going to worry about it until the results come back.  In the meantime, his recovery is going slow because of the location of the surgery—imagine having a gazillion stitches in your wrist and then walking around on your hands all day!  Bless his heart.  His dog cousin, Kaya (who also recently underwent surgery), even sent Billy Ray a handmade pawmade get-well-soon card in the mail:

(Obviously, Kaya has way too much time on her hands, er paws…)

And this is just how the dog days of Summer are going around here at Casa Lulu.

And as an ode to Billy Ray, here’s some pictures of the stinky hound for your viewing pleasure: