Happy Halloween!

Not sure how much I'd have to pay John to wear this yellow get-up/gold medallion. But since Lydia is going to be a Tootsie Roll, I guess the below picture would be more accurate.

Both are kind of a bad idea.

The green eyed monster

My son Jack is going to be a blue monster this year for Halloween. Totally a typical 3-year-old he decided last week that he absolutely had to be a blue monster, and it would take a Halloween miracle to get him into the tiger costume that we were planning on using this year. After hours of googling, phone calls and re-googling, I finally found the poor kid a blue monster costume and he's one happy camper.

Anyways, it got me thinking about what I would be for Halloween this year if I was dressing up (which I am definitely NOT), and sadly I think I'd have to be a green eyed monster. It has been years since I've been really, truly jealous of anyone. Back in college I got jealous when this horrible girl tried to steal my boyfriend, and let's just say that ended with a horrible fake trip and approximately one pint of keg beer being poured all over said girl's head. So, safe to say that I don't handle the whole jealous rage thing all that well.

Lately I find myself lurking on message boards reading stories about writers who have found agents or recently signed huge publishing deals and I am completely consumed by jealousy. I know, I know it's so completely childish, but I just can't seem to stop myself. I read their queries and excerpts from their books and compare them to what we've written, it's like I've turned into the Blair Waldorf of writers. I'm a hot, catty, mess.

I'm working on conquering the monster, really, I am. I just can't make any promises. So...umm...any published or agented authors out there, if you happen to see a shortish girl with a slightly crazed look in her eyes and a little blue monster clamped onto one of her legs hobbling towards you with a full glass of beer, one word of advice: RUN.

Downer day...

Nothing bad actually happened today, just not really a great day. Our inbox remained stubbornly empty, the kids were insane and I'm so tired. I'm sure a lot of this can be attributed to our long weekend in Vegas and I know it's not helping that I haven't been to the gym yet this week, but I just can't work up the energy to do anything about it. For the love of god I just want to get an agent and get our book published. This is just emotionally exhausting.

Anyways, I'm shutting down the computer, putting the kids to bed early and pouring myself a huge glass of wine. Cheers!

Your weekly dose of Bass...

It's that time of the week again dear readers. You know I always save Tuesday nights for catching up on Gossip Girl and as usual our upper East Side Lothario does not disappoint.

This week I couldn't choose just one quote. I love both of these because I fully plan on using them in day-to-day conversation as soon as humanly possible.

When Blair asks Chuck his opinion on her perfume, he takes a sensual whiff and declares,

"Smells a little like desperation."

And then when the king of frown lines, Dan Humphrey, is trying to get Chuck's attention he replies,

"I heard you, I was just choosing to ignore you."

Thank you Chuck Bass.

P.S.

You rock fitted purple sweaters and black velvet pants like nobody's business. Seriously, I think my mom might have worn something similar one Christmas in the mid-90's. Wouldn't it be awesome if they had one of those US Weekly who wore it better polls and it was Chuck Bass versus my mom. My new mission in life is to make this happen.

I am the worst mom in the world...

For a couple reasons. First of all, Lydia had prunes for the first time yesterday. The doctor suggested feeding them to her every so often to cleanse her little system. They looked like tar, but she loved every last bit of the container. So when Lydia awoke (as usual) at 3 a.m., I went in (as usual) and popped her pacifier back in. When at 4 a.m., she was still playing around in her crib, I went in again and flipped her onto her back, thinking it was a little strange that she hadn't fallen back asleep. No, the prunes did not ring any bells. 5 a.m. rolled around, and still Lydia was playing in her crib, again on her belly. Maybe she's not tired? Oh no, no, no. At 6:30 a.m., a reasonable wake up time, I went in to change her. Poor Lydia had the dirtiest diaper of her life. I won't go into very much more detail (as I'm sure you all have imaginations of your own), but if I were Lydia, I would have been playing on my stomach as well. In fact, I'm not sure I would have been playing at all, but rather SCREAMING to have someone, anyone change me. Damn prunes.

Identity theft, isn't it romantic?

Ok, this is just so creepy I had to share. My husband had his credit card number stolen last week and some random dude bought a subscription to Playboy, some DirectTv porn and other things that (thankfully) don't fit my husband's typical spending patterns. So, the little fraud alert bell went off at the credit card company and they called my husband to see if he made these purchases.

Just to give you some background, I'm totally paranoid about identity theft because I've read all the horror stories about not being able to buy houses or cars because some jackass has buried you in $25,000 of credit card debt. Anyways, I've been busy obsessing about whether our house is going to go into foreclosure because someone took out a sub-prime mortgage on a condo in Fort Lauderdale, and then today we received flowers.

Correction, my husband received flowers. The note was somewhat mysterious, saying only "IUY." I've googled it, tried to decode it, would love to hear any theories on what this might mean. At first I thought my husband's girlfriend was sending him coded messages, but then he reminded me (somewhat defensively, I might add) that his credit card had recently been stolen. Cue complete paranoia. I was on the phone with the FTD.com faster than you can say "bankruptcy" only to find that they have some useless confidentiality clause (I mean who are they protecting here? Secret admirers?) and they could not disclose the sender. Finally, I ended up checking the stolen credit card and there it was a $41.99 charge on FTD.com for our cheap-ass flowers.

So, to be clear, our identity thief sent us flowers. Did he do this to thank us for the porn? To soften the blow of having someone steal our credit card? To taunt us? Isn't this totally bizarre? I think Stacey has the best theory I've heard so far, perhaps the thief meant to write IOU on the card instead of IUY. Not bad, Stace...

The funniest part of this entire situation is that in Ken's world, buying flowers is so unusual that it actually sets off fraud alerts. Classic.

The Top 10 Reason Vegas Rocks

(From left to right - Laura, Lisa and Stacey. Joni refused to pose in the picture!)

10. Joel McHale - We saw Joel live on Friday night, you know the guy from the Soup? From discussing real-life encounters with the Kardashian family to debating whether his 3-year-old son was an evil genius or dumb as a box of rocks, he was hilarious. If you ever have the chance to see him live, I highly recommend it. Good times.

9. Awesome lady from Boston who gave me $15 - This lady was fab for two reasons. First off she thought my mom was my sister. So really, this is fabulous for my mom, not so fabulous for me. But still my mom loved it and at least I have good aging genes. Right? Also when she heard it was my birthday, or in retrospect, maybe she just felt really bad for the whole sisters thing, she gave me $15 to play at the table! How nice is that? Of course, I lost the money instantly, but still. Super cute.

8. Random dudes from Texas who think the election is being funded by Dubai - Really, you can't make this stuff up. Two guys from Texas (one of whom was allegedly hitting on my mom according to the nice rich lady from Boston) started talking politics at the 3-card poker table and it got ugly. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but when people start spouting lies about Obama being Muslim and referencing that his campaign is being funded by Dubai, it pisses me off. Ignorant and ugly, but also sort of awesome because you meet all sorts of people in Vegas and they're NEVER shy.

7. The pool at the Mirage - From random dudes with mustaches hitting on bikini-wearing, daiquiri swilling, women who look 5-months pregnant to party promoters inviting us to nightclubs, it has got to be the best people watching in America. You just never know who is going to turn up at the pool in Vegas, but chances are good that they shouldn't be seen in public wearing a bathing suit.

6. Free dinner - So, normal people go to Vegas and get their dinners comped because they win so much money gambling, but not us. That's way too easy. Instead, Laura and I got food poisoning from one of the restaurants at Mandalay Bay. Yes, that's right, I spent 24 hours of my Vegas trip puking in our hotel room. Note to self, never a good idea to order a tuna melt with macaroni salad in Vegas. (What were we thinking, Laura?)

5. Drumline - Shockingly I've never seen this little gem before, but it was playing on MTV at the peak of my food poisoning. Two thumbs up. I mean, if you're going to be throwing up in Vegas due to food-borne illness as opposed to a crazy night of partying, this is definitely the movie to watch. Nick Cannon. Drums. Dancing. Inspiring moments. Good times.

4. Quick Hits Slot Machines - I've never really liked playing slot machines until my mom introduced me to this little gem. It's the gambling equivalent to crack. We were all so sure that this one machine in the Bellagio was going to hit that we ended up pouring close to $300 into the stupid machine. It was so dumb, yet so exhilarating. Even Laura who usually hates gambling was totally obsessed with these machines. It was a little scary.

3. Video Poker - So, you've lost most of your money at 3-card poker and the Quick Hits machines, now what? Video poker baby! It requires a small amount of strategic thinking, yet it's completely mind numbing. After you've played about 100 games your eyes start to blur and you totally forget that you're pissing away your money. It's fabulous.

2. Hotmail via Blackberry - Did you really think we'd not be checking our e-mail for 4 whole days? Puh-lease. By Friday morning I had figured out how to use my blackberry to check our e-mail and we checked obsessively throughout the weekend. We did have some good news come in, but still no offer of representation just yet, and so we wait...

1. My mom and sisters - We always have the most amazing time together whether we're in Vegas or sitting at my mom's kitchen table and this weekend was no exception. In spite of feeling like I was going puke for about 50% of the trip and losing every penny I brought with me, I still managed to laugh so hard that I cried and had the best birthday ever. Thank you so much for celebrating with me. I love you guys!

Vegas Baby!

Well loyal readers, I regret to inform you that our little blog will be taking a brief hiatus while Laura and I hit the strip to celebrate my 30th b-day.

Now, I know what you're all thinking..."what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," right? Sadly, I'm not sure this rule applies when you're travelling with your sister who's 4 months pregnant (Stacey, not Laura!) and your 55-year-old mom. Although, as my mom says "as long as the slots are loose..." I swear, she's like Vince Vaughan from Swingers trapped in the life of a Cleveland CPA.

Anyways, I'm a little concerned that the universe is going to implode if we're not sitting at our computers refreshing our hotmail all day long, but in reality, this little break might be good for our mental health. We'll be back with lots of embarrassing pictures and riveting updates of the status of our (empty) e-mail account on Monday.

Yeah, we're so money and we don't even know it,
Lisa and Laura

Damn you, Lisa...

Just kidding. At this point, what do we have to lose? At least it was a memorable phone call. If nothing else, they will always remember the crazy amateurs who bothered them late night. But, that doesn't mean you're off the hook in terms of an embarrassing photo upload (you, Quincy and a waterfall come to mind). We'll get to that next week...if I can convince Stacey to send one my way. With that said, I am signing off, that is unless something huge happens between now and my flight tomorrow. Have a great weekend everyone!

Ooops...

Ok, so let's just say, hypothetically that someone, let's call her Lisel, was sitting around one night and after she finished watching the Hills she decided to take in a little 90210 only to find that it was a repeat. Inevitably, she started to get a little bored. She refreshed her hotmail for the 80,000th time. Checked her cell phone to make sure she hadn't missed "the call" from an agent. And finally, she decided to look over the query spreadsheet to gaze longingly at the list of agents waiting to be queried.

Now, just to provide a little background here, Lisel had a very specific conversation with her sister, let's call her Laurel, earlier that evening about not sending out any new queries before their big Vegas trip this weekend. I mean, really, what's the point of querying if you're not going to be around to refresh your e-mail every 2 minutes.

Ahh, but there was one name on that list that called to Lisel like a siren's song. Their website looked so promising. The agents/editors sounded so fun. Lisel just knew that they would love the book, yet one essential piece was missing. No submissions policy. Hmm...this was unheard of. Usually, submissions policies are prominently featured on agency websites, but this place is new and has a different (and very cool) business model for marketing and publishing books, so Lisel did the unthinkable. She picked up the phone.

Now, those of you who have never attempted to find an agent before might not realize this, but calling agents is strictly verboten. Agents are busy. Agents don't have time to hear from lowly aspiring authors. Agents are gods that control the fate of your sorry ass book, and you really, really don't want to piss them off. Anyways, Lisel, under the mistaken assumption that no one would ever answer the phone at 11:11 PM, called their offices hoping for a message that would provide clues regarding their submissions policy.

So, Lisel's itchy little fingers dialed the number to the office and the phone rang once, twice and then "Hello?" Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Lisel realized that this was not good. Not only was she caught violating the golden rule of agent querying, but she was also violating said rule at 11:11 PM on a Tuesday night. She quickly ran through her options. She could hang up. She could lie and say she had the wrong number. Or she could just ask about the stupid submissions policy. So little Lisel did what came naturally and apolgetically asked about the submissions policy, and while the agent/editor didn't exactly hang up on her, she did sound slightly frazzled by the totally random call. Fabulous first impression, Lisel. Just fab.

Now some people might decide to call it a night after such an eventful evening, but Lisel isn't some people. Now that she's broken the rules she figures she might as well really piss Laurel off and send the damn query. I mean, it certainly couldn't hurt, right? Who knows, this agency might actually enjoy crazy, stalker-like phone calls from prospective clients at 11:11 PM on a Tuesday night, right? RIGHT?

Well, anyways, I'm sure we'll all be hearing about Laura, I mean, Laurel's reaction to this debacle tomorrow. Let's just hope she hasn't saved the pictures from Sophomore year homecoming. Ouch.

Deep thoughts from Chuck Bass...

Well dear readers, it's Tuesday and you know what that means. Time to hear from the beloved stylish man-whore who is Chuck Bass.

This week Chuck asks dear annoying, slightly wonky looking Vanessa:

"Did you have a reason for coming here? Because if it was to insult me there's a web site you can go to."

Love it. TGFCB (Thank God for Chuck Bass).