Did ya miss me?

Gettin' outa Dodge does wonders for my ego.
Why? Well two weeks ago the AMG's were all like"we don't need you. We can organize ourselves. We can have AMG without you. Just you wait and see."
I saw.
Nothing.
Nill.
Zero activity.
Miss Kathy was going to be a big girl and get everyone together while I was gone.
Didn't happen.
So you all thought my job was easy, huh?
Getting 20 strong willed woman all in one place on any given Thursday. No easy feat!
Now you all better appreciate me! No more taking this gal for granted.
I'm envisioning an "Eileen appreciation night." Whadaya think?
OK, I know, I'm pushing it. I'll get real. Back to earth!

So, obviously I have been away. I went up to the lake for about a week and a half.
I have so many stories, I don't know where to start.

I think all of you have read in this space before stories about my neighbor up the lake.
He is the only jerk on all of Conneaut Lake and unfortunately, he lives next door to us. He lives there year round. He is a lawyer. Apparently not a good one.
Having said that, I took Smokey the Guard Dog with me this time. We all know how much Smokey loves me.

We get to the cottage and I unpack the car. After finishing, I decide to take a walk down the street to see some friends.
I'm there for about 30 minutes when I get a call from Devin. This were his exact words: "Mom, Smokey jumped through the back door and fell into the lawyers pool."
Whaaa?
He repeats that sentence. I start to laugh, thinking he was teasing me. It was then I heard my father screaming in the background.
"Oh my God, I'll be right there" I say.
I run home, good ol' Smokey is lying on the living room floor soaking wet. Rolling around.
Seems he just missed me and went looking for me.
He jumped right through the back door. It was dark and I guess he was just wandering around when he happened upon the neighbors pool and I guess he fell in.
Turns out the jerk neighbor was sitting on his porch (Thank God) and thought it was his dog that fell in the pool. So he jumped in the pool to save him. When he grabbed his collar, he realized it was not his dog. He got Smokey out of the pool and Smokey ran. Fortunately he ran to my Aunt's. (I think he heard Devin's voice) And Devin brought him home.
Now the asshole neighbor is my best friend.
How funny.
So that was the first hour of my vacation.
We had a good time. The champagne was flowing.

We had one unpleasant event. One night I was sitting on my cousins porch, which is about three cottages down from ours. I start to walk up the street towards home when my sister screams out the door for me to hurry, my dad was not moving. My heart sank. I ran up the street, my cousin followed. Turns out my father fainted. He has been fainting for years. And I am used to it. My sister, not so much. She has never seen him faint. Let's just say, "The Madonna" who is perfect in every way, except in emergency situations. She picks up the phone to call 911. She mistakenly dials 411. In that instant, my father comes to. He yells at us to not call an ambulance. So I had to sleep on the couch because she was also afraid to be alone with him in case he fainted again.
Times like this we miss our mother, she knew exactly what to do in these cases.
At least she would not have dialed 411 for God's sake!

Next thing that was funny to me is the small town newspapers and what they think of as news.

So I am going to share with just a few of the big news items that I found on page two.
I swear I am not making this up. I am going to type word for word.

A truck driven by ****** was traveling north on Hickory Street when it sideswiped (gasp) a car driven by *******, which was parked on the east side of the street, causing damage. ******told police he had to move over because a vehicle coming in the opposite direction took too much room. Witnesses told police he DID have enough room to drive by that parked vehicle. (apparently he didn't or he wouldn't have hit him people) According to police the road was dry and the weather was sunny.
Can you believe it. Shocked is all I can say.

A wallet was stolen from an unlocked vehicle in front of its' owner's Charlton Street residence between 10 pm 6.29 and 9 am 6.30.
Asshole, why did you leave your wallet in an unlocked car overnight, and called police???

Compact Discs (who calls them that?) were taken from TWO unlocked cars parked in a public parking lot near Micky's Central Fire Station Restaurant on July 6th.
This is too shocking to comment!

OK people, brace yourselves. Here it comes. Remember I am not making this up. This is word for word. The following is the worse crime of all.

Overnight between July 3 nd and 4th, an unidentified person destroyed an Obama for President sign in the yard of a North Street Residence.
Can you believe it? Of all the nerve.
Actually I'm pretty impressed someone was brave enough to put up an Obama sign. You can't believe how prejudice and narrow minded most of the people are up there.
There was another one about two kids riding a bike when the sign clearly states "No Bike Riding", but I can't find the paper. But you get the gist of it.

Thank God I'm Home! Where people getting gunned down on the street barely make it into the paper!
Thank God I'm appreciated!

We'll be having a grand old time this Thursday. I can tell you all about my experience in court this week when they sentenced the man who broke into my house.
You'll be shocked. I turned into a softy and told the judge not to put him in jail. (Psssst.......don't let that get out, people might get the impression I'm nice or something)
Let me know if anyone has any suggestions on where to go this week.

FYI: No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, that is Ginny Ann and I with our summer loves in the picture above.