Pittsburgh, this is me, thanking you from the bottom of my heart and also informing you that you have donated to Make Room for Kids …

$13,806.29!

That total might go up a bit after Mike and I get our little auction going over the next few days.

Also, if you haven’t yet seen it, Pittsburgh Business Times talked about Make Room for Kids and featured a photo of elusive butler Mike in action on not one but TWO computers.

He’s [awesome lightsaber moves] like that.

You should see his lair.

It’s where we keep the PittGirl Mobile and all the PittGirl Says Drink! shirts that will never see the light of day.

And speaking of which, note the following from a press release out of Lukey’s office:

The Mayor’s plan to monetize the City’s parking assets is moving forward and the Pittsburgh Parking Authority is currently conducting interviews for a sell-side financial advisor to steer the process.

According to rule #1 , that’s endorsed, and by the power vested in me by Me, Myself, Barack Obama, and I … DRINK!

What what!

I know I told Woy to tell you I wasn’t going to post anything until Monday but that’s because I was pretty sure I would be dead come Monday and then you would come here on that day and there would be a weepy post by Woy all, “OMG. SHE FREAKING DIED!”

I was that sick.

I am 35-years-old I have never in my life asked or needed to be taken to the emergency room, until this week.  This week made Texas Death seem like the best week of my life.

There’s a lot to get caught up on regarding Pittsburgh news (FRED HONSBERGER!), but first, I’m going to tell you the story of how I ALMOST FREAKING DIED!  If you listen closely, you can actually hear my husband rolling his eyes at my dramatics.

It began Sunday when my son woke up with a fever and didn’t get out of bed until noon.  The same son of mine who has never once in his seven-year-old life slept past 7:00 a.m. (I know.  I’m sorry for me, too.)  Sunday came and went with me trying to somehow keep his temperature below 102 while having my family over for my daughter’s scaled-down third birthday party.  Chaos.

As soon as the party wrapped up and he had eaten lots of green icing and had run around like a madman with his cousin, his fever returned, now armed with an extra .5 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome.

Monday happened to be the day that I had made well-child checkups for both of my children with their pediatrician, so I carted my one well-child and my one feverish-child off to get poked and prodded.  There in the waiting room, my toddler fell asleep in my arms.  The reason this is notable is because she is a crazy little person who hasn’t fallen asleep in my arms since she was 8 months old and she certainly would never willingly fall asleep in the waiting room of the building where Mommy lets people jab her with needles.

I left the pediatrician’s office with TWO feverish children who had their noses swabbed for the flu virus and went home to wait for the call from the doctor telling me they tested negative for the flu because they both had their regular flu shots this year.

So on the way home, I get a little tickle right here in my throat and I can’t clear it out.  Odd.

Ten minutes after I arrive home and place my sick children in their beds, the phone rings and it is the doctor telling me that one of my children has tested positive for the flu and since he had the flu shot, we must assume it is the swine flu.

[thud]

And since the test isn’t very accurate, even though my daughter tested negative, we must also assume SHE has the swine flu.

[thud]

And since if they DO have the swine flu then they are contagious, they are not to leave the house for one week and my son must stay home from school until Monday.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!

WHY GOD, WHY?!!?

When Tuesday rolled around, both kids had already managed to kick the shit out of the flu and were running around beating the crap out of each other while I, their mommy, was now very very sick with what I assumed was also the dreaded swine flu.

I called my doctor and told him what was up, you know, that I was CLEARLY ON MY DEATHBED, and was rewarded with a prescription for Tamiflu.  Incapable of moving from where I sat lest my body shatter into a trillion pieces, at least that’s how it felt, I called my Mommy.

Luckily, my Mother, the lifelong asthmatic, had already had her vaccine, so she was the only person who could come to my rescue.  And being the protective worry-wart mother she is, she called my doctor to speak directly to him and find out what she needed to know to take care of her baby.

While I’m sleeping, my mother comes into my bedroom to wake me up and to tell me in the exact same tone of voice she would use to tell me that an asteroid was heading toward Earth and ground zero was the space between my eyeballs, that should I experience shortness of breath, the doctor said I was to head straight to the emergency room BECAUSE THAT MEANS YOU ARE DYING.

Awesome.  The media has nothing on my mother when it comes to scaring me about the swine flu.

Come Wednesday, I’m still dying.  Can’t move.  My lungs feel like they need water wings, my head is all KABLOOEY!, and my skin is just burning.  Add to this the fact that my husband, and I say this with immeasurable love, has the bedside manner of a succubus.  He never gets sick, ever.  He has missed one day of work in twenty years because of sickness, so he can’t understand people who get sick and take to their beds.  If he was a doctor, and you were wheeled into his ER in the middle of a heart attack, he would be all, “OMG. Whine some more, why don’t you?”

It was this callous bedside manner that worked me into a screaming rage on Wednesday afternoon and suddenly my lungs shut down, “OMG.  I CAN’T CATCH MY BREATH!  [gasp] [gasp]  YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU ARE GOING TO KILL ME! [gasp] [gasp].”

My mother, who was downstairs caring for my now completely healed children, came rushing into my bedroom to find me sitting on my bed trying to catch my breath while my husband looked very very guilty for bringing on this fit of hysterics.  I sat on the bed for a good twenty minutes trying to will my lungs to take in air while my mother hovered over me with tears in her eyes all, “THE ASTEROID IS COMING!  GO TO THE HOSPITAL NOW!”

And I got scared.  I mean, the last person I read about that died from the swine flu lived in Butler and was a 34-year-old mother of two. And here I am, a 35-year-old fever-crazed mother of two who can’t breathe and my mother is looking at me like she’s already mourning my passing.

Shit. TAKE ME TO THE ER, YOU INCOMPASSIONATE SON OF A BITCH!

Being sick makes me evil and also makes me believe that incompassionate is a real word.

In the ER, I was placed in a bed and the nurse came in to ask when the shortness of breath began.  And I replied, “WHEN I STARTED YELLING AT THIS CRUEL SON OF A BITCH! [gasp] OMG. I CAN’T BREATHE! [gasp]!”

I think she tried to stifle a laugh as she turned to her little rolling computer, probably to type, “This girl is batshit crazy.  Remember to share this with FML tonight.”

They put oxygen up my nose, gave me a breathing treatment, took a few chest X-Rays, swabbed my nose for the flu virus, and when they hooked me up to an EKG, that’s when I knew, “Shit. I’m freaking dying.” I started crying, thinking about my funeral and also about how I would haunt my husband mercilessly for the rest of his life and I texted Woy to tell him to let everyone know I wouldn’t be around until Monday.  If I survived. Sob.

After an hour or so of waiting for the doctor to come in and confirm that yes, you are dying and is there a funeral home we should call?, she finally arrived to poke her head around the curtain all perky-like to say, “So, your lungs are perfectly clean and the nose swab came back negative. We’ll give you an inhaler. Go home and get some rest.”

I’m pretty sure my husband laughed a little.

Did my children have swine flu?   If they did, they beat it senseless in less than 48 hours and sent it home crying to its mommy. They’re badass like that.

I’m better now and no one who was around us for the party has come down with anything.

The point of the story is that, first, I love him dearly, but my husband is ruthlessly cold when it comes to sick people, and second, I ALMOST FREAKING DIED, YOU GUYS!

As it stands now, I haven’t left the house since Sunday and just to be safe, I won’t until Monday, at which time, a frickin’ pigeon could knock on my door all, “Hey, cutie. Wanna go for a ride?” and I’ll be all, “OMG. Let me get my purse, snookums!”

And then I’ll inject that knowing bastard with botulism.

What? I’m not THAT desperate.

Hi everyone - Woy (or Mike) the butler here. I feel a little strange writing a post – normally I’m the guy in the back room making sure the machinery is running smoothly.

My boss asked me to let you know that she’s very sick and will not be posting anything until Monday.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Ginny. The Zima (stolen from the Byham) will be on ice and the mojitos will be prepared for your return.

On Saturday, my sister Pens Fan/Tammy and I took our seven-year-old sons to see a Musical Christmas Carol at the Byham and three notable things happened.

1.  From start to first intermission, I understood exactly three words, “Chickens!” and “Bah humbug.”  And since I’m not sure bah and humbug are actual words, let’s just say I made out one word. That’s a fun, frustrating as hell time.

2. Our sons never once noticed the naked ladies painted on the ceiling. I’m a bit disappointed because I was really watching closely to see that first wave of, “OMG. BOOBIES!” wash over their cute little faces.  Never happened because they were so engrossed in their Sqworms and Sour Patch Kids.

3. When we arrived, I beelined to the bar and said to the bartender, “I am going to ask you the weirdest question you’ve been asked in a long time.  Do you have any Zima back there?”

And he didn’t laugh at me or guffaw or make a joke about 1990 calling or about 1992 paging him or anything.  The only perceptible change I saw in him was that  both of his eyebrows suddenly became very high, curious arches of pleasant surprise and he said, “Yes, we do!” clearly so excited to finally find a human being willing to shell out $4.50 for what was probably a two-year-old bottle of tangerine Zima.

Here I am, holding my first Zima in almost a year:

Yes, those very may well be tears of joy reflecting in my eyes.

THANK YOU, SANTA!

Hell froze.

Pigs flew.

It snowed in June.

The sun went ’round the moon.

And now I’ve managed to slip into a treacly Vanessa Williams song when I should be slipping into “Crying” by Roy Orbison or “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. or “End of the Road” by Boys2Men or “Where’s God When I’m Scared” by the Veggie Tales.

The point is, the impossible happened and the Steelers lost to armpit hairs.

In the wise words of Tiger Woods, “I will wear you out.”  No, wait, I mean, “When’s the last time you got [bleeped]?” No, not that one either.  I mean, “You can always get better.”

Yes, that one.

And seeing how horrible the Pittsburgh Steelers are right now, and seeing how very hard they are digging in futility at the bottom, trying to get BENEATH the rock, there is nowhere for them to go but up and there is no possible way they can get worse.

Ugh. Game:

1.  Eff.

2.  EFF!

3. [sob]

4.  STAB! [Hiya, Ike Taylor voodoo doll]

5.  First person we need to talk about is The Boss.  The Man.  Mike Tomlin.

He promised to unleash hell in December and then unleashed nothing.

He promised to not go gently into the night and then sent his team to bed like good little kids on Christmas Eve.

He promised changes. CHANGES.  BIG CHANGES, PITTSBURGH.  I’m going to bench asses, yo! is basically what he said, and then he did …

NOTHING!

A big giant pile of nothing.  Same starters.  Same stupid plays.  Same stupid mistakes.  SAME!

I believe it goes that doing the same thing and expecting different results is the very definition of “crazy” and lo and behold, Mike Tomlin HAS GONE KA-RAZY, because look at what he said after the loss to the Raiders:

“Moving forward this week and beyond, we can’t continue to do what we’ve been doing and assume that that pattern of behavior is going to change and those outcomes are going to change. So we’re analyzing all aspects of what we’re doing here, specifically this week, and are going to be aggressive in terms of looking at potential changes in not only what we do schematically, but who we have do it in all three phases.”

Maybe he was talking about the phases of the moon or something because nothing is making sense.

It gets better.  He then said:

“We can’t stay status quo in terms of how we’re approaching this thing and expect the pattern of behavior or outcome to change,” Tomlin explained. “That’s unrealistic. That’s hoping. This is not a hope business. I’m not a hope-mentality person.”

To be quite honest with you, I’m getting so riled up writing this post that I’M MOVING MY LIPS AS I’M WRITING THESE WORDS!   I’m also typing with BOTH of my middle fingers sticking up in the air.  That ain’t easy, yo, but that’s how much I care.

I still love Mike Tomlin, but I’m having trouble remembering him as the Smokin’ Hot Burgher wearing the Sunglasses of Football Justice and instead I’m seeing him as, well, CRAZY!

That, or Carl Winslow.  Put away the crazy and bring back the hot, Mike.

7.  Because he’s a badass, Hines Ward played with a pulled hammy, dropped a potential touchdown pass, and of course, wept on the sidelines after the loss.  As per his usual.

SO glad I got him that pacifier.

Look, even his Mickey Mouse tattoo is all, “Talk to the hand, whiny bitch.” [gasp!] I’m being mean now. Meh.

(h/t Norm)

8.  The Special Teams of Suck continued their suck by allowing Joshua Cribbs to have another huge punt return.

Only good thing that came out of that was watching Daniel Sepulvedanomnom once again school Jeff Reed in the art of the tackle.

Seriously, if you missed this part of the game because you were maybe vomiting or something, go watch the video.

I know this is probably a weird word to use to describe Daniel chasing down Cribbs and bringing his ass down, but, DELICIOUS!

9.  However, I can’t say a bad word about Skippy today because he scored EVERY ONE OF OUR POINTS! Go get yourself some sluts, my friend.  I think Tiger might have some he’s no longer using.

10.  Mendenhall and Parker had less than 20 carries between the two of them in a game where the wind was strong enough to send Casey Hampton airborne.  Gerry Dulac, who predicted the Steelers would lose, wrote:

To run just 12 times in the first half and only 15 times in three quarters against one of the league’s worst rush defenses — and with 45 mph wind gusts — was inexcusable.

Or, CRAZY.

11.  The O-Line is gone. Vaporized. Or they were just holograms because the Browns were running right through them on enough plays to allow The Duke to be sacked EIGHT times. By the Browns. EIGHT TIMES! BY THE BROWNS!  WHO PREVIOUSLY COULDN’T SACK POTATOES!

How does that even happen?

I think maybe this witch had something to do with it.

12. I don’t know what more I can say.  It’s as if they gave up and bailed out of there like their plane was floating on the Hudson.

You are now free to move about the country, because you guys sure as hell aren’t going to the playoffs.

Next week.  Packers.  I’m fully expecting that post to start with, “LETS GO PENS!”