Boy did I screw up this time!

Wednesday, I received more than the average amount of telemarketing calls. One particular number kept calling and hanging up on my answering machine at the salon. Anyone who knows me knows how much this burns my ass.

Finally, after the same number called no less than 11 times, I answered the phone. They hung up on me, or should I say, the computer hung up on me. Now it's on. They are getting called back.

I do not have long distance on the salon phone, Windstream rapes me enough. I have to use my cell phone to make long distance calls. I start to dial and realize that I don't want them knowing my cell number so they can start harassing me on that phone too. So, I hit *67 before the number to block my number. Well, at least I thought I did that. Turns out I hit *68, didn't really think much of it. Until Thursday at noon.

I realized Thursday at noon that my cell phone was pretty quiet, which is unusual since when I am not at the salon, I transfer the phone to ring into my cell phone. I decided to call the salon to see if maybe I forgot to transfer it. It rang twice and I expected the machine to pick up. Imagine my horror when I heard "Thank you for calling the March of Dimes". I am all like WTF???? So, I call again. At this point I am thinking I screwed up the salon phone so I try calling my voice mail. Instead of getting the standard greeting, once again, I reach the March of Dimes.

I promptly call Verizon and tell them what an ass I was the day before. The rep looks up my account and is baffled by what I have my phone programmed to do. I had it programmed for a busy, ring back transfer, forward something or another, anyway you look at it, my cell phone as effed up. I had to hang up and punch no less than four different codes in before I cancelled everything out and it was working like normal.

I wonder how many people called The Purple Pinkie and got The March of Dimes?

They've multiplied!

Well, this morning there are more! The California Raisins, in Halloween costumes have did the nasty over night and spawned! I love it!

Confusion

My neighbor must be confused. He just put out some new lawn decorations. Now the California Raisins have been in the yard as long as I've lived here, but it is definately not Halloween!

We had a party!

After I got home from derby practice last night, we had a little birthday party for Riley. I stopped and got a very small yellow cake. After we sang to him and helped him blow his candle out, I cut the cake into four and Mr. Bruises, both dogs and I each had a piece. Travis ate his in one bite, never even chewing it. Riley wasn't much better, I think he chewed once.

Riley got a stuffed zebra for his birthday. Please don't feel bad for Travis. Even though he looks devastated in this photo, he got his own toy, even though it wasn't his birthday. In true Travis fashion, within 10 minutes, he had BOTH toys and was hogging them.

Happy Birthday, sweet Riley, I hope we get to celebrate many, many more with you!

Birthdays Suck!

I am a big fan of birthdays! I always have been. Mr. Bruises, however, has put the kabosh to that for me, though, when it comes to Riley. Today is Riley's seventh birthday. That puts him at 49 in people years. He is officially older than us.

You know, Mr. Bruises has a point. After a certain point, it's no longer fun to celebrate a beloved pets birthday. It's just one year closer to heart break. I can't imagine the day we no longer have this wonderful, golden creature in our lives.

But wait! Now our sorry-ass moods have gotten the pretty boy down! Enough of that! It's time to put on our dancing shoes and celebrate with a hamburger birthday cake with mashed potato icing! It's time to celebrate life, not pending death!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Rye Pie!

Memorial Day

Last night, BFF Jill and I went to the Ford City Park and attended the Memorial Day candle light ceremony that the Lion's Club and VFW put on every year. It's been years since I've attended one of these ceremonies, so I was really happy when Jill asked me to go.

The ceremony is always on Sunday night at 10:00 pm. They block the streets off. They turn all the street lights off and encourage all residents to turn off their lights for the ceremony. The town is dark. Then everyone lights candles. As a kid, I remember lighting our candles and sticking them to the sidewalk in front of our house.

The town has a speaker system that plays then entire ceremony to the town. I live approximately two miles from town and I can hear parts of the ceremony from my yard. It usually starts with the Heritage Days Choir singing, a key note speaker and more singing. It concludes with the Honor Guard shooting guns and the playing of Taps.

It is a very moving ceremony. It is very touching to see how many people strolled down to the park and stood with candles. Small children, standing quietly, babies in strollers sleeping. All ages were represented.

We are getting older. A former classmate, Mike Klingensmith is now the head of the Lion's. It's time for our generation to take over these traditions and make sure they continue. Mike ended the evening by saying, "Thank you, God Bless and God Bless America."

I'm going to hell....

I went to catholic school for eight years. I am not sure if that molded me into the person I am today or if it scarred me for life. One thing that I know, I have been to church less than 10 times since my eighth grade graduation.

We went to mass every Wednesday and every Friday. During lent, we attended Stations of the Cross every freaking day, then still went to mass on Wednesday and Friday. I totally feel that I have my Sundays in for the rest of my life.

They say that catholic school kids are bad. They are right. I did some of the worst things in my life while in school there.

I worked in the library. One day, I found a bunch of High Honor Roll certificates in the librarian's drawer. I stole one, forged our Principal's signature on it and proudly took it home. I was promptly rewarded with a fifty dollar bill from my grandmother.

I can remember going to regular confession. Confession is a scary thing for a child. I can remember confessing that I fought with my brother "x" amount of times and fought with my sister "x" amount of times. People, I am an only child. I was lying in confession! How horrible is that??!? How many freakin' Hail Marys do you think Father would have given me as penance had he known?!?

Another favorite thing to do in confession for me was to screw with the kneelers. The kneelers were rigged up so that if someone was kneeling, a light went on above the door so that parishioners knew that the confessional was occupied. I would lift my knees up and down so that there was a disco-themed strobe light show going on for all my classmates waiting their turn. That was, until Sister came and removed me from the confessional. By my earlobe.

I have fond memories of catholic school, however, I don't know if I would recommend sending your kids to one.

Officially Official............

I've retired from derby. There, I said it. I retired on Sunday. I will admit, I have had many moments of remorse over that decision over the past few days. Even though it's going to take getting used to, I think I made the right decisions.

Mr. Bruises injury hit me hard. Neither of us are youngsters anymore. I've been struggling with back, hip, neck and knee ailments for sometime now. It's just a matter of time before one of them can become more serious.

I've been going back and forth with the decision for months. On a recent road trip with BFF Jill, she suggested writing a pros and cons list. So simple. So I took her advice. The only legitimate con I could come up with, besides never bouting again, was not being able to hit anymore. That one hurt. I LOVE to hit.

I've now moved over to the striped side of things. I am becoming a ref. It was the only natural thing to do. I am on the rules committee. I know the rules pretty well. Some of my favorite peeps are refs. So, yeah, this isn't looking so bad after all!

The Cripple

Sunday, I get a call from Mr. Bruises, he is at the motocross track, saying that he crashed and was heading to the hospital just to get checked out. It seems as though he was going over a little jump, trying to go around someone and when he crested the top of the jump, his bike jumped out of gear. He went down and his arm was pushed into his side and he fractured two ribs. The bike, doesn't have a scratch.

Mr. Bruises is 44 years old. He's been riding since he could walk. This is his FIRST crash ever with any type of injury. I remember when I first met him, he has a couple of scars on his face and I was all impressed that they were race injuries. Later I found out that he is just clumsy and that they were all caused by tripping over a fan in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

Well, he is in a lot of pain. I can totally sympathize. However, he is a total bugger, fighting me on everything to do with his recovery. Trying to say I am overdosing him by giving him two pain pills when the prescription says one to two every four hours. He won't eat, but he has to eat to take his Motrin. Then he complains because he has an upset stomach. Well, if you ate, you wouldn't have the upset stomach. Then he says he don't want to eat because he is just sitting, doing nothing and can't burn it off. WTF? I am certain that this boy was a woman in a former life. He worries about his weight more than anyone I know.

The goldens have totally dumped me for him. He's been sleeping in the Lay-Z-Boy, so I get the bed all to myself. Literally. I wake up in the morning and I am alone. Everyone is with him, even the cat. Geez.

The other night, I offered to make the ultimate wifely sacrifice. I offered to wipe his butt. Those of you knowing me and my gag reflex will appreciate this selfless gesture. Luckily, he was able to take care of that business on his own.

I don't know how long he is going to be out of commission, but I finally feel comfortable going to work and leaving him alone. They say three weeks of bad pain and six weeks to heal.

Now as for these goldies. Don't they realize that I not only purchase their kibble, but I hand it out as well. I better be getting me some snuggles or they will be on a hunger strike with their father!

How to be a Douchebag 101

First, you go to this blog and read it. Gina's Blog.

Then you log into your Myspace account and cut and paste the blog post in as your own. Douchebag's Myspace Blog

You will note that Gina posted her blog on May 11 at 10:36 am. Douchebag posted on May 11 at 12:44 pm.

Seriously? Your life is so boring that you have to plagiarize someone else? If you are going to repost something, at least give credit to the actual author. Don't let the Internet think you are so clever to come up with this shit on your own.

Someone. Needs to get a life. That way you can blog about it. You, Ms. Douchebag are the official Dumbass of the Week!

Dogs Walk for Babies!

This past Saturday, I joined 33 other people, including children to walk as part of the group "Burgh Moms and Dads" in the March of Dimes, Walk for Life. This group was put together by Burgh Baby and we were walking in memory of a beautiful little girl named Maddie. Our group raised over $5200 and in a very short time.

I had my camera with me, however, I had to steal the group photo from my new friend Gina. I took lots of pictures, but I took them of the large number of dogs that were walking. Sorry, dogs just catch my attention. Hey, dogs love babies too!

This was the first dog that caught my eye. This dog was clearly loving the shirt that he was wearing with pride.

This was the second dog, obviously still a puppy. He was just trotting along, sniffing everything, just happy to be out and about!

There were big dogs.

And small dogs.

And multiple dogs.

And Steeler dogs.

And very well-dressed, accessorized dogs.

Here's another favorite. This little guy was at the perfect level to get plenty of pats from the multiple children riding in wagons and strollers. I am certain that they shared some of their goldfish crackers with him as well.

Finally, this is my favorite photo of the day. This cutie was taking a water break. All for a good cause.

I hope that Maddie's family can take a little bit of comfort in knowing and seeing that so many people, who have never met them, have been so touched by their little angel. I know I have.