Bark For Life – Saturday, May 5th

Saturday’s weather forecast looks beautiful! If you’re looking for something fun to do with your pooch, sign up for the 3rd annual Bark For Life event from 9am – 12pm at Cook Park in Colonie.

The Bark For Life is a walk event for dogs and their owners to raise funds and awareness for the American Cancer Society’s fight against cancer. This year’s event will feature:

• Adoption clinics
• Doggy Photo Booth by Heather Bohm-Tallman Photography
• Kiss-A-Bull Booth by Out Of The Pits
• Purple Hair Extensions
• Best Dressed Contest for human/canine couple (Cinco de Mayo theme)
• SEFCU’s Mobile branch
• NYS Police K-9 demonstration
• Giveaways, prizes, and much, much more!

Registration begins at 9am and is $20 per dog/owner team. Bring your best canine friend and join a fun-filled day with a walk, demonstrations, contests, and games! You can sign up, donate, or find all the information you’ll ever need HERE.

Make sure you tell them Friday Puppy sent you!

(Thanks, Mark, for providing us with all of this info!)

My friend Chris Pratt (owner of Pearl St. Pub and the Barrel Salloooooooooooon) is running for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man of the Year Campaign.   He has this to say:

For the past 8 weeks I have been involved in a fund raising campaign for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, LLS, called The Man of the Year. Basically I try to raise as much money as I can through events and private donations in an 8 week period. I am in the final week of my campaign and have done well but I am still short of my goal. So many people have asked me why I am doing this campaign. They want to know if I am a survivor or, have a family member who is sick. Fortunately I am neither but I am sympathetic to the many children who suffer from this disease each year and as a father of two beautiful healthy daughters I am grateful. This campaign is a great way for me to give back. Just 40 years ago the survival rate was below 20% now, because of research, it is over 70%. That is mainly due to the funds donated by people like you and I to find a cure.

What I am asking you to do is simple, please go to my campaign page and donate whatever you can give. Even if its 10.00 that will help. I really want to raise as much as I can so please consider donating.

CLICK HERE to give to Chris’s campaign!

On Thursday, my grandma died.

She was on the decline for a while, entering Hospice while the family emotionally prepared for her passing.  While she hovered on the brink, I had a chat with Jesus; I told him that he’d better be there to personally greet her at the gates of Heaven after she attended daily Mass for nearly 90 years.

I think Jesus had a scheduling conflict, because my grandma miraculously woke up out of Hospice, was coherent for a couple more weeks, then died peacefully Thursday morning.

When I got the news, I felt at peace for two reasons:

1. I knew she was being escorted around her Heavenly Dream House by the Man himself, and
2. I knew she was finally driving my grandpa nuts, cooking him terrible goulash and making up for their 12-year separation.

I also felt sad, and instead of crying like a normal person (like my cousins), or looking serious and stoic (like my uncles), I did what I normally do at funerals: desperately tried to shut my brain up.  Every time I’m at a funeral – and I mean, every time – my brain is all, “Hey, gurlll! You’re trying to look solemn!  Here’s a totally inappropriate thought!”

The last time I attended a funeral, I spotted a woman wearing an $8,000 mink coat while carrying a $40 nylon purse.  Instead of paying any attention to the ceremony, I obsessed over that coat/purse discrepancy, wondering if she had lost all her money and, if so, why she didn’t sell the coat and pay some bills.

This time, I noticed some serious streamer action as we entered the church.  There were long, rainbow-colored streamers hanging two stories high, from the ceiling to floor.  In fact, there were rainbows everywhere, and I turned and whispered to my mom (in true confusion), “Doesn’t the church hate gays?”

That’s definitely the question to ask in the middle of a Catholic funeral.  Definitely.

I hereby ban myself from all future funeral attendance, because I’m the worst at it.  The rainbows represented Easter and rebirth (or something), which I’d know if I ever went to church.  At least my involuntary bad behavior stays (mostly) inside my head; if I were one of those people who giggled in stressful situations, my grandmother would have reached down from above and “hit me with a ball bat!” to remind me how a grandchild of hers ought to act in church.

…maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

There was fashion. And as you can see, there was also alcohol. Follow the jump for a few of my favorite outfits of the night! keep reading more…

Why is that dog pink, you ask?

Because it’s subliminal advertising for The Pink Party, being held at my house this Satruday night.  We have a handful of tickets left, although by press time it may be sold out.  If you are interested in attending, CLICK HERE.   It’s so cheap!  Only $25.  and you get to use my urinal.

The following dogs are this week’s 3 Cutest Friday Puppies. keep reading more…

This Saturday at Wolff’s Biergarten is the 2nd Annual Bier Stein Holding Competition.

It starts at 3:00pm.

I’m not sure if you were there last year, but it’s a spectacle.

If you can’t make it, but would like to give to Chris’s Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s Man of the Year Campaign, please click HERE.

I have written on this blog about Gwyneth Paltrow, so it should come as no surprise to you, dear readers, that I am not afraid to address controversial topics in my writing. And as we in that time of year wear the weather teases us like a schoolyard bully, I have to ask you to join me in a great debate. Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to talk about summer scarves.

I admit it: I love a summer scarf. I own them in bulk. I have one that was gifted to me by a very sexy Canadian from Hermes that is worth more than my car. (Seriously, my car is a piece of shit.) I just bought 2 more and there’s one in my online shopping bag at Mr. Porter (PS, my birthday is in a few weeks, it’s the red bandana print scarf by Hartford, you guys can get it for me and just ship it to Bombers). I understand, the very idea of a summer scarf flies in the face of all that a scarf is supposed to be. It’s a sartorial oxymoron. Who needs a scarf in the summer?

Fat kids, that’s who.

I learned that one day when I was shopping with my mom at Ralph Lauren and I kept picking up scarves and ties.  In her own awesome way of telling me I had put on weight (as if I didn’t know) she mentioned how I was only picking up scarves and ties. “Why is that Eric?”, she intoned, “Because you don’t have to go in the fitting room and try them on?”  Foiled again.

But she had a point, scarves always fit. Plus, in all honesty, I just like them. For a big boy, I am always effing cold, and I swear, the one time I went out between October 1^st and April 30^th without a scarf on I got strep throat. Also, as you get older, sometimes you have a “thing”. Something you wear that’s sort of your signature.  Like how Joan Rivers wears a mask and Chris Brown wears a wife beater. I like scarves, they’re my thing.

But the debate continues, there are people that dread the thought of them, hate the way they look and can’t tolerate them. I draw the line at wearing one if I have shorts on, but I do know a girl that wears 2 scarves at once and I think that’s kind of awesome.  And I’m probably kind of a hypocrite, because one time I had a very negative visceral reaction to some douche who was wearing a knit wool had and skinny cord jeans on a super hot day in July. (When did the L train start making stops in Albany? Seriously, leave it in Brooklyn.)

But what about you guys, do you summer scarf? Or do you secretly want to turn them all into a noose and hang the pretentious jagweeds wearing them? Weigh in with a comment, or tweet me @mrerichenderson with your favorite summer scarf story. Or just skip ahead to the pictures of the dog.

So, today we are giving away TWO TICKETS to The Pink Party, to be held at my house this Saturday night at 9pm.

The Pink Party is a fundraiser for Leukemia Lymphoma Society, and in order to be let in, you need to purchase a ticket, and wear something pink and fun.  I might be dressing up like a bottle of Pepto Bismal.  Pepto Bismo?  how the heck to you spell it.

We have some tickets left, and it’s a really amazing party.  So much alcohol and so much dancing.  You’ll love it.

Please don’t wear glitter.  That shit gets everywhere and then I’m picking out glitter from my dogs hindquarters all spring.

If you would like to win 2 tickets to The Pink Party, please be the 20th commenter on this post.

Good luck!

On Monday, April 30, there will be a showing of the documenter, “Madonna of the Mills: The Truth about Puppy Mills” in the Legislative Office Building.

The documentary will expose the growing number and horrible conditions at the puppy mills throughout New York State.

To find out more information on this documentary, keep reading more…