Getting Bit

I have had this blog for almost four years now and for the first time the internet has bitten me in the you know what. And it bit hard.

An extremely popular facebook page (with 294,427 likes plus 2,499,433 talking about it) shared an old joke about a Sgt Major and a young college liberal female that is rather crude. It's been heard before, whatever. The problem is they posted a picture of my grandfather and I taken at a ball in 2006 with said joke. Someone contacted me on my facebook page for my blog, which I really do appreciate, and made me aware of this.

I went and saw the post and I am not going to lie, I cried. I still feel sick to my stomach and it kills me. No, people on the internet should not matter, but this got to me. The post has over 12,000 likes, 1,128 comments and 6,382 shares. My Poppy and me are all over the internet. A man who has loyally served his country and also been married for 65 years is in a defaming post from a picture my cousin took of us seven years ago. So as much as it kills me to be called ugly sixteen different ways it kills me even more that the most honorable man I have ever met has become internet fodder through no fault of his own.

I commented asking the picture to be removed and I messaged the group page owner. It is still up. Some people have commented after me asking it to be removed and have shown their support, which I am so grateful for, but I feel so sick still. I finally filed a copyright violation through facebook and reported the post.

But at this point, even if it is removed, that picture has been shared nearly 7,000 times. I doubt deleting the original post will delete all the posts that shared it after. And I am sure those shares were shared. Honeslty I am now crying again as I type this at 2 o'clock in the morning. I know the page owner probably just google searched for an older Sgt Major and a young girl to use and it isn't a personal attack, but it has become one.

People have commented saying terrible things. I have been called ugly and insulted up and down left and right. And it hurts. No one should have strangers pick you apart on the internet. Especially when you're in an early awkward college phase and your eyebrows aren't as thin as you'd like or the lighting is low in a ball room. Either I am ugly or they comment on my presurger chest size or they call me a tag chaser, pension whore and a slut.

It is literally killing me.

I just pray my Poppy never, ever finds out about this.

Looking at the comments was a mistake, but I couldn't help it. I also noticed my step cousin, a fan of the page, early on caught the picture and commented jumping to our defense. Thank you Michael. But now hundreds of comments have followed and even my own was covered. I was polite and just asked it to be removed. Now four hours later it is still up and the page has posted new content within the last hour so I know they have had a chance to see my message (and ignore it) so I reported it.

Again, thank you for those who commented their support. I pray this is removed and something like this never happens again. For the first time since starting this blog.... I regret it.

Rylie is MY dog

Have you ever heard people say how alike pets and owners can be? Rylie could not be my dog any more if she tried. She is klutzy, occasionally gets carsick, doesn't listen when she is in trouble (yea I admit it, if you yell at me I tune you out!) and she is blonde. I get it... the universe either thought it would be hilarious to match us up or that whole nature vs nurture debate can extend to puppy/mama relationships as well.



As a pup, Rylie has a LOT of energy. Usually we go on a two to three mile walk everyday and play fetch either down by the river or at the apartment. We also go outside on mini walks throughout the evning. As the weather has been gorgeous I have come to really enjoy our walks. There is a dog park down at the riverfront in Old Town that I had been debating taking Rylie to. Last week I left her on the leash (it is a good 25 foot extender) and let her run around, she did alright. Friday night I decided I would try her off the leash.

For the most part Rylie did very well and she definitely had a blast. She had her first jaunt into the river (not as thrilled as it IS the Potomac, but I let it slide as she was crazy excited about it) and ran around with the big dogs. Once she went up a little too close to the street and I yelled at her, but otherwise she stayed nearby. The bigger dogs, the goldendoodle and the labordoodle, were outrunning her quite a bit and she did her best to keep up. It was between the running and the play wrestling I noticed she was hobbling a bit. Uh oh.

I checked her paws and didn't see anything. I felt her legs and she didn't whimper or seem upset, so a little while later we left the dog park. Rylie did not want to walk home, the poor thing was exhausted and just laid on the sidewalk looking at me like, "Walk? Are you nuts? I'm wiped!" Eventually she did get up and her walk seemed better when we got home. I scrubbed off the Potomac River residue and my clean pup got to air dry in the apartment post-bath.


Drying pup!

Saturday morning her limp was back with a vengance. She didn't even want to walk further than ten feet from our front door, she just sat down on the sidewalk. She could walk and go up and down the stairs, but she did not seem happy about it. I called the vet and they told me just to bring her in. We got ot Banfield, the vet at PetSmart, so I asked if I needed to make an appointment. They told me no, just come in. I knew Rylie was not feeling well because she promptly got in the car, laid down and was quiet. Usually she is sitting up, whining and restless and a furry drool machine (carsick). Saturday she was silent.



So we get there and go and sit in the waiting room. It is pretty crowded and Miss Social Butterfly wants to say hi and play to every dog in the place, forget that she is injured. We sat in the waiting room for two hours. I ended up hearing I had to be a walk in because all the appointments were booked, but I would have tried to make one for Sunday if I had known that! Two hours in a waiting room with a crazy pup is not fun. We finally go back to see the doctor and her back left leg was definitely injured. They needed an X-Ray.... not cheap.

I tried to get a hold of Ryan to ask what to do but he was doing Community Service and didn't get back to me until it was too late. So I told them to go ahead. It was another hour wait so I dropped her off to wait for that and ran to eat for the first time all day. As I finished lunch Rylie finished her X-ray and the verdict.... torn meniscus. Really pup??? Running around and you tear your meniscus??

Ok, I once got a concussion doing a presentation in college when I hit my head on the podium... I can't talk. See how alike we are? Injuries in silly/normal situations. Sigh.

So Rylie is on a week's worth of anti inflammatories and puppy morphine twice a day. I am glad she is not in pain, but the drugs make her comfortable so she wants to run and play. I have to keep a five month old puppy from running! We can only do short leash walks, no two milers and no fetch. The little putz was faking me out yesterday too! She acted like she was sniffing to go to the bathroom then would dart out and try and run in circles around me! Ugh. It is going to be a long ten days!! She needs to heal because if the meniscus tears/ruptures completely she will need surgery. And that is a lot of dollar signs.

Oh pup. She was pretty passed out Saturday night.... not sure if it was teh four hour vet visit, the weather, the drugs or all of the above, but the pup did not move from the couch most of the night! Poor pup.



I may have gotten her a big bone so she'd feel better and not go too crazy!

Oh Geeze....

I really really need a job.

I sent about ten resumes in to jobs off Craig's List today.

Went back and reapplied at Kohls.

Tried AAA, Liberty Travel, Protege, Macy*s, Baker & Taylor, and others.

Still nothing.

God this is awful.


Ryan cannot come up until next weekend and most of my friends aren't in NJ anymore... so living at home is sort of feeling a little suffocating at the moment. Yes I am planning a wedding, but I am still so damn lonely it sucks.

Disney Face Character Auditions

Ok, I promised so here it goes.


So I picked up my friend Jenny at 8am or so and by 8:30am we were in line. And man was that line long!!! It said we could arrive by 8am and had to be there before 9am to be allowed in. So we got there at the halfway point and we were waaaaay in the back of the line.... see?



That was a whole lot of line. I waited for nearly two hours in that outside line. When I got inside the building finally it was pretty quick. Outside it was tons of all sorts of different people. Some I could see actually being face characters, some I had no idea who the heck they could be! A lot of people were smoking in line too, I was a smoker at that point and I purposely did not light up before going into that audition. That doesn't strike me as a smart idea at all.

When I finally go in they made me take off my shoes and measured me in a small dance studio room thing. They said I was 5'6''.... I am totally 5'7''. But whatever. I signed my name on a piece of paper and got my number, 423. Holy hell. And there were still a lot of people behind me.

Then we got into another small line. Then in groups of 30 we went into another studio and stood in three lines. They played random music, like the Black Eyed Peas? Not sure what that had to do with anything, but yea. So each of the three lines was inspected. A woman walked down the row with a packet/paper, looked at our faces and had us smile at her, wrote stuff down, went to the next person. It was awkward to have someone look at your face, barely glance at the person next at you, nod at some... very nerve wracking. If you pass the face test the next round I believe is trying on the wig and make up for whatever character they think you'd work for. If you pass that then you get to try on the DRESS for said character. If you fit in that then the next round is a movement/dance routine so they see if you're better for meet and greets or parades or shows or whatever.

Out of the 30 people in my room 3 went on to round 2.

I was not one of them.

Yea, as much as you try not to mae it personal it still hurts knowing I failed in the first round because of my face. It can't not hurt a little. I cannot audition for anything again for six months. I shot myself in the foot, I should have totally waited for an audition that had fur characters and parade performers too... just face characters AND an open call like that was stupid of me to do. I should have waited for just a College Program multi-audition.

I was talking to someone in my entertainment class today and she works as a character now. She said from that last audition they had over 800 people come (apparently there were two lines, mine of 500+ and another line of all current character performers trying to bridge the gap to face from fur that was about 300 people) and they took 19. 19 people.

Fail...

But now you know.

Maybe come April Ryan and I may be moving to California? If he gets stationed there? I can try again in April... and Disney Land is in California.

Oh forget it.