Let's guess some more because that was fun.

Ah, you know my shame.

And it's not the shame of a Christmas tree skirt, a Snuggie (formal or otherwise), an outfit for a concrete bird or yard gnome (I'm now frightened of the Midwest), an outfit for a choir boy or any person of the cloth (yeah - I think the church has a Shoot on Sight order on me), a giant dog doo bag, toilet seat cover (yeesh, those things freak me out) or a pirate shirt.

And while "Halloween costume for a friend's child" is a close guess (nice, Kris), CLP and Nutsy Coco were right on the money.

I'm making, or rather have made, a Halloween costume for Jada.

Feel free to think mean things about me or judge me if you're a big fat Judger, because I've gone over to The Other Side of pet ownership by creating an item of clothing for my dog.

I KNOW - it's retarded - BUT she comes to work with me and at work we love Halloween so much it's like everyone here is seven years old and since I'll be dressing up for Halloween and, of course, bringing her to work with me, I thought she could dress up in a coordinating (not matching - *coordinating*) costume so that we could (brace yourself, this is where it gets more shameful) enter the Group Costume contest, or at least I could enter her in the Pet Costume contest because we have one and it's funny.

Of course, until now I considered the Pet Costume contest to be ridiculous and retarded and oh how sad that pug is dressed as a lobster and it doesn't make any sense, but when I thought up my own costume in a moment of bridesmaid dress reuse brilliance, a coordinating costume for Jada fell right into place.

Sound absurd? Oh, it is. I'll assure you of that.

How absurd though? Well, let's guess...

Using the shitty clue of the above collage as guidance (and yesterday's, too, if you want), please feel free to guess at the costume I created out of scraps in my stash for my, until this year, uncostumed dog.

And yes, these tightly cropped photos were taken as she modeled this costume for Bubba and I, her tail wagging all the while.

Sure, I lured her from the comfort of her enormo doggie bed with handfuls of treats before I festooned her with this Halloween finery, so maybe that's why she was so super cheerful, but I daresay she pranced the catwalk (dogwalk? no matter) for Bubba and I and appeared to not be bothered by the bizarre new nightly rituals taking shape in our house.

Before now, the most "dressed" this dog has gotten is when it's raining and we torture her with a doggie rain coat. This sounds stupid, too, just like a Halloween costume, but I am not lying when I say that she takes five seconds to dry off after a walk with the doggie rain coat and that is a lot shorter (hours shorter) than when we dry her off after a no-raincoat walk.

For a short haired dog, she's awfully absorbent.

Anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay - enough about my poor abused dog, who is, like, the best sport ever.

You all feel free to guess at Jada's costume, which is ready but for just a final top stitch, and if you're real good and want to go out on a limb, go ahead and guess at both of our costumes using the following consistently shitty clues:

1.The bridesmaid dress I'm reusing this year is orange.

2. Our costumes go together thematically, but do not match. Which is obvious given that her costume doesn't contain any orange. Hey! Another shitty clue.

3. Our costumes only share one color: white.

4. Both of our costumes, combined, will only cost me a total of $24.99, as all of the materials/bits/pieces/details were sourced from around the house except for a new pair of shoes for moi because HELLO I don't have any shoes in *this mystery color* yet.

Not helpful? If you can guess Jada's costume, I'll tell you what the theme is and I bet you'll guess our Costume Shame pretty quickly.

I will, however, not be telling you what Bubba's calling our costume theme, because it makes me feel sad and like I wish I'd have thought through the implications of our theme a little better so that I could avoid adopting one with such unfortunate associations.

Yeah, I'm sure that's not super helpful.

Start guessing!