There may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me

Have you ever seen that commercial? It's the one with the golden retreiver puppy singing that song that goes...There ain't no bugs on me, there ain't no bugs on me. There may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me. Well, guess what? We found bugs on Rigby and not the usual fleas. We found a tick on him. Kerry found a bump on his skin and started to freak because that's how Mac's Histiocytic Sarcoma started so she decided to play doctor. She grabbed a pair of tweezers and started digging around on him. She found something suspicious and grabbed it with the tweezers. She pulled a tick out of him and it started to crawl up the tweezers. OMG!! Rigby was infected!

How cute is Rigby?

I grabbed him and we ran to see Dr Eich, Rigby's vet. Luckily I had just gotten him groomed the day before so he could be examined with little difficulty. It was time for his yearly shots so we had that done to him along with a stick up the butt for heartworm and Lyme's disease tests. I am happy to report that other than a yeast infection in his ear, all of the tests came out negative and Rigby is as healthy as a little horse. Dr Eich thinks that it was a rouge tick that Rigby probably picked up at the pooping grounds which is what I call the place that we take him for his daily walks. We were given a tick collar that he has to wear for three months but it doesn't seem to bother him too much and all is well in his little doggy world.

There may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me!

Lucky Me!!

There is a thread on Richard's clubhouse boards that has me feeling very, very lucky. Sometimes I forget that many other people did not have the wonderful childhood that I had. I was surrounded by parents and a brother who loved and adored me in a 50's Beaver Cleaver kind of way. That's sort of how I remember being young in Long Beach. Father Knows Best complete with a dog.

Me at my old Long Beach house that has been recently redone

We didn't have a lot of money but I never remember wanting for anything that wasn't provided for me. I got the Betsy Wetsy (with hair) that I cried about, I got a piano and lessons that I wanted, I even got the Beatles at Shea Stadium Field level box seat tickets which I was sure I would die without. Yeah, I was a happy and a lucky kid.

The amazingly cool house across the street from my house

Don't get me wrong. Things weren't perfect. I was fat. I remember that...really well. I was picked last during games and competitions. I was called names and made fun of but somehow, some way I was able to get through all that with my self esteem intact.

I met Pat, who turned out to be the love of my life, when I was seventeen. Seventeen!!! So many women have lived their whole lives and never had a good, close, caring relationship with a man. How lucky was I to have met my "the one" when I was 17? It's hard to wrap my mind around it.

I can truly say that I have been very happy my entire lives with the exception of a couple of times when life events like death came and bit me in the butt. There wasn't much I could do about that other than carry on with my life and try to be happy.

I have had so many blessing that I can't even name them all. I guess the name of this blog is exactly how I am feeling right now. Lucky me!

Hurt shoulders and burned hands

I had a really strange dream on Saturday night. I was in the middle of a riot. Why were the people rioting you might ask? They were rioting because Tiger Woods had decided to quit playing golf forever. Now I can understand rioting about that. After all what fun is golf without Tiger prowling around the course being all winning and hot? It's enough to make anyone riot. The problem came when the rioting people stole Kerry's car. This really upset me in my dream. I started to make noise and move around in my sleep. I woke Pat out of a dead sleep. He tried to wake me but I was completely into this dream and couldn't seem to come out of it.

The Tiger Woods Fist Pump

I sleep on my side/stomach with my arm underneath my head. I remember waking up but hearing a really strange noise coming from my left shoulder as I was coming to consciousness. Now I can't seem to move it much. Not a good thing. I was injured in the Tiger Woods riots.

Yesterday I was cooking chicken Parmesan for Pat and when I was reaching into the oven my hand touched one of the oven racks. I hit the ceiling. I spent the whole night with ice on my hand. My right hand.

So what does this mean? First of all, I hope my dream doesn't come true. I would miss Tiger Woods and I might have to riot. Second, I have a bum left shoulder and a burned right hand. At least I'm balanced being hurt on both right and left sides. Work should be lots of fun tonight.

Time is getting short

Here it is Saturday morning and I am sipping coffee waiting for the the kid to wake up. I was told yesterday that we would be hitting the mall today. I guess it's a stress reducer for her. It's a pocket emptier for me. LOL

We will go to the Towne Center Mall and shop in all of Kerry's favorite stores. We will go to Anthropology, Nordstrum, Saks, Coach, Abercrombie and Fitch and Bloomingdales. We will check the sale racks in all of these stores and she will drive me crazy until we buy something for her. It's kind of a reward for all this studying. Kerry always does well on the reward system.

We will also have lunch at Salad Creations where we will make our own salads with whatever "throw ins" we want. We will also choose our dressing from a list of about 20 different dressings. I will choose full fat ranch. Yep, you heard me. Full fat ranch. My good friend and fellow Fab L has taught me that sometimes a smaller portion of "the real stuff" is a good thing. This lunch always gives us energy to finish shopping and we need energy as shopping is usually a 4 to 5 hour thing.

This kid is really working hard. She is studying 6 or so hours every day. I know that she will do very well if she doesn't let the stress get to her. She feels as if her life is coming to a screeching crescendo which will be this test. Gen Chem, Organic Chemistry, Physics and Verbal skills. That's what life is all about around here.

Kerry in scrubs...Dr Peewee

Good luck Peewee. I'm pulling for you.

Happy Paul McCartney's Birthday

Today is my Pauly's birthday. Yeah that's what we call him...us fans. We call him Pauly. Well, today is Pauly's 66th birthday. It is a day for celebration and music. I have a busy day today but I will make time between yoga class and the closing to stop listen to Pauly and be happy that I was born at the same time as him. Well, 9 years, 7 months and 11 days after him.

Paul from the White Album

I have so many wonderful memories of Pauly. I remember Shea Stadium in the 60's and flying to NY to see him open at Madison Square Garden in 1989 but my favorite would have to be the last time I saw him which was in 2005. My friend Michele got her husband to fly us up to Tampa. I had really great seats at this concert and I was able to sneak my way up to the third row. I stood there and cried. It was amazing to be so close to my Paul. The security guy kept tapping me on the shoulder and making me go back. After about 10 times Michele stepped in front of him and said "Do you know what dream smasher is? Just leave her alone. She's not hurting anyone". Well, the security guy felt bad for me, listened to Michele and left me alone. There I was. 3 row away. I saw him and he saw me...OMG!! There are no words.

Happy Paul McCartney's birthday to everyone.

Monday, Monday

It's Monday today. Back to work and back on track. I am down 5 of the 15 pounds that I had gained and I'm feeling good. I've been good with food and consistent with exercise. I went to the track this weekend as well and a Friday yoga class and a Saturday yoga workshop.

Making healthy food choices will be my challenge today as I have already been to the track and powerwalked 4 hot and sweaty miles. I will be moving tonight at Curves. It's all about the food today. It's all about the food every day. Oh yeah.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my blogging friends, Laura, Beth, Vennie and Ang. Your blogs give me motivation, make me laugh, and let me know that I am not alone.

Happy Birthday to you yesterday Bethy. I hope you had a great day. Laura, Vennie and Ang I love you all.

Another one of my guys...Jimmy Connors

When I was 17 and I started dating Pat one of the things that he was into that I wasn't was watching professional tennis on TV. In those days it was all about the best Australian player to ever live, Rod Laver. Pat taught me all the rules of tennis while we watched Laver beat everyone he played. I had never played tennis no less watched it on TV however I was quickly hooked.

Through the years I always tuned into the tennis majors which are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. I was a huge Jimmy Connors fan and never missed him play. I loved his bad boy attitude and Beatles haircut and when he made his last run at the US Open in 1991 I was in front of the TV with my drink in my hand ready to watch Jimmy kick butt.

James Scott Connors

I had just gotten into bed and was waiting for the match to start when the phone rang. It was my very pregnant best friend Michele. She told me that she thought something was wrong because her water had broken. Michele's husband was out of town and I was in charge of making sure all was well with the world so I had to get out of bed and drive her all the way to Miami. Sure enough, she was in labor and had to have a C-section. I sat in the OR holding her hand as the doctors cut her open and pulled her new son Michael from her body. It was an amazing experience but I couldn't help but wonder what had happened at the tennis match.

When I got home the next morning I found out that Jimmy had lost the match and it had been a bit of a blow out. It was the last time that Jimmy played with any real chance of winning against the best players in the world so I guess the 1991 US Open was his swan song.

Jimmy ended up marrying Patti McGuire who was the 1977 playmate of the year. Yeah, a playmate of the year. Oy vey. They are still married and I saw a picture of them recently. It looked to me that the years have been kinder to Jimmy than they have been to Patti but we are all getting old, aren't we?

I still think about the tennis match that got away from both Jimmy and me . To this day I remind Michael that he ruined my last chance to see Jimmy Connors play competitive tennis. I guess seeing a baby born via C-section was pretty cool but OMG! Jimmy Connors was my tennis Paul McCartney and it took me some time to get over missing that tennis match. Michele was lucky that it was Jimmy Connors and not Paul. I might have told her to call someone else that night. LOL

I love Jim Cramer

I watch a lot of TV. I love to tune into the business channel and watch the company stock symbols go by to see if a stock is up or down. I think I like it because there is a gambling aspect to the stock market and as we all know I love to gamble. Is FPL up or down? What about Apple? Are bonds up or down today? Oh yeah, I love all of this.

I make sure to watch my stock market mentor Jim Cramer whenever I can. He is a screaming, totally over the top, prop throwing 62 year old loud guy that has taught me more about the stock market than anyone else on the earth. His frantic style on his CNBC show Mad Money has made me stop and listen to this crazy guy. Before I knew it I was learning things about the markets, oil prices, bonds and keeping up with different stocks. I am much more informed about money now that I have Cramer to teach me about these things.

This is Jim Cramer

When I started watching Cramer's Mad Money (please remember that my maiden name is Kramer) one of the first things I did was buy a Jim Cramer bobblehead doll. Yeah, well, believe it or not I packed up my Cramer bobblehead and took him to Las Vegas with Kerry and I last December. I took pictures of him all during our trip. Cramer at the Grand Canyon. Cramer at Hoover Dam. Cramer in the snow. He actually made our trip more fun because we were always laughing about my Cramer bobblehead however I was sure to check the stock market as soon as we got to our room at the Mirage Hotel. It was the first thing that I did.

Cramer at Hoover Dam

Cramer in the Snow

Cramer at the Grand Canyon

Just to prove I'm for real, here is Cramer and me at Hoover Dam

I have read all three of Jim's books and my favorite is his newest one called Stay Mad For Life. It's written for people like me who are coming up on retirement. He offers some really great advice in this book about 401Ks, mutual funds, stocks and savings plans.

I wish I would have known about him when Kerry was young. She might have been rich now or at least have her college paid for. I make Kerry watch Cramer when she is around. She says she has no interest in the stock market but she does look at certain things like how Apple stock is doing so at least she is thinking about it. Many of her friends who are beginning investors also watch Jim Cramer's Mad Money. He actually goes to colleges to talk to the young kids about investing. They listen to him because he is so loud and out there. He speaks, they listen.

I have heard people say that there is no time like the present so I have recently taken some of Jim's advice put it into action. We will have to wait and see how it all pans out. That is, after all, what the stock market is all about.