We are so back!

Winners! That's you. You are all winners, in mine eyes.

Nonetheless, I do in fact have five winners for the A GOOD HARD LOOK giveaway. I will announce them when they are CONFIRMED as actual live human beings and not spambot MILF-hunters. (Curse you, spambot MILF-hunters! Stop sending me filthy Twitter spam and then adding insult to injury by trying to win free books from me!)

I am pleased to inform you that my family and I traveled to California and back--and lived. Miracle of miracles! The planes remained aloft! The pilots did not forget their years of training! I lived yet another day without spontaneously combusting! Will wonders never cease?

(Did anyone else read The Book of Lists when they were little? I skated right over the dirty parts in that book so I could preoccupy myself with tales of spontaneous combustion. It seemed not only possible, to me, but likely. Of course I would burst into flames for no reason. Of course my mom would come to wake me for school and find a pile of ashes lying in a me-shape in my otherwise pristine, unburned bed. It would just figure.)

I went to BlogHer for precisely 22 hours (I counted!) and then Rebecca whisked me away for dinner with Bethany, who I've only wanted to meet for forever. It was a lovely ending to a crazy but awfully fun day, during which Eden and I signed countless books and I somehow managed to not see countless people I went  there specifically to see. BlogHer is getting a little... big, for me. Not bad. Just big. SO BIG. I was overwhelmed. After dinner, and once we found Rebecca's car (it took a while) (she's pregnant, you guys! With twins! She's THREE PEOPLE!), she kindly drove me north to Carlsbad, where I met Scott and Henry at Legoland.

Oh, Legoland. What can I say about this "Legoland"? If you were to ask Henry what his dream vacation would be, he could not have devised a more perfect place than this. An entire park dedicated to the thing he loves more than food and sleep and also us? He'd probably leave out the mean parents who curbed his spendthrift impulses, which kicked in every time he saw a gift shop, oh and p.s. there's a gift shop every few feet. Despite his frustrations with us and our damned sense, he had so much fun.

Of course, if you asked me what my dream vacation would be, it would not at all resemble Legoland. Nonetheless, Henry's utter glee was contagious, and the experience was entertaining enough for two days. (I don't know how you could do Legoland for more than two days.) My main stressor during those two days was sun protection, and whether or not we had applied enough so that we wouldn't be destroyed by the awful yellow orb in the sky but not so much that we resembled zombies. There seems to be no way to achieve this happy medium, by the way. Lord knows I tried. Also, is there a wide-brimmed hat that does not look completely dorky? Answer: no. Don't even bother answering that one for me.

We returned at 2 a.m., Tuesday morning, and I have still not recovered. I am a delicate flower. Dim the lights on your way out, would you? Be a dear.

Heading out

Oh my god, I am getting on a plane in 6 and a half hours! Which means I'm leaving for the airport in one hour. Naturally.

When I was flying around the country with Eden, she was dismayed to learn how early my anxiety disorder required we get to the airport. Eden can be alarmingly mellow/sane when it comes to terrifying details such as "scheduled departure times." I would like to be at the airport the night before, if at all possible. Fortunately this time I am traveling alone, and have no one to torment but myself.

I'm really not a fan of flying. Not just the hurtling through the air in a screaming death machine part: the whole process. The packing. The boarding pass-getting (will I do it wrong? Probably.). The panicking on the way to the airport because the cab/train/subway is taking longer than I think it should take. The double and triple-checking that I'm in the right airport/terminal. The long, arduous security line. The possibility of being manhandled. The idiotic shoe-removal. The waiting around the gate for two hours because God forbid I don't get there super early. The purchasing of overpriced snacks and magazines. The visiting of every restroom in the airport, because when I get anxious, my bladder goes into overdrive.

But then I'll be in San Diego! So that's fun. If you're attending Blogher along with me and the 40,000 other people, I'll be at the Mastercard BillMyParents booth on Friday, from 9:30-10:30 and again from 2-3. Copies of our book will be on sale there, and we'll be signing 'em! So please get over there and at least say HELLO, for the love of--really, what will it take, with you? I'm leaving Friday night (to join my family at Legoland for the weekend), so this will be your ONLY CHANCE to luxuriate in my presence. I hope I get to meet you. And you, and you. Okay, you too.

Invitation to the most important discussion about parenting in the history of ever

Are you going to BlogHer this year? Because I'm participating in an event sponsored by BillMyParents, and you should come.

Here's the deal: My esteemed colleague Eden Kennedy and I are, as you know, parenting experts. On Friday, August 5th, at 11:45 am, we'll be hosting a lunch/discussion (I call it a "lunchscussion") with Liz Gumbinner and Kristen Chase, of Cool Mom Picks fame, who apparently know something about kids as well? We're not really clear on their qualifications. We suspect their children are made-up. Anyway, the topic of our discussion will be "Parenting in the Digital Age." We'll be asking them all about whether or not you should tell your children that the Internet exists, and/or when you let your child have one of those "cellular phones" everyone keeps talking about. And then we will determine whether or not their answers are correct, or insane. Things could get rowdy. Liz is fairly diplomatic, but you never know about Kristen. She's scrappy.

In order to join us, go here for more information on how to RSVP. Space is limited, so hurry. HURRY!

I will also be at the BillMyParents expo booth (booth #227) for a couple of hours on Friday, whittling and talking to myself, so be sure to stop by and say hello. Or just throw things at me. (Please don't throw things at me.)  (I'm not sure what my time slot will be, but as soon as I know, my friends, you will know as well.) Eden, Liz, and Kristen will also be there during the conference, and if you visit you can enter for a chance to win a trip to SxSW in 2012.

Full disclosure: I am being compensated (with money!) by BillMyParents for my involvement in this event. The BillMyParents MasterCard is a card you can give your teenager(s), which you can track and control right from your smart phone.

I'm back. It's hot.

On the flight back from BlogHer*, I was seated right in the center of a group of airline attendants who delighted in relating stories involving customers and sickness and bodily fluids spilling in public areas. (This was especially charming as I was at that moment psyching myself into ingesting a slice of limp, nasty airplane pizza. It was revolting, but I forgot to load up my bag with snacks, and I need to eat every 23 minutes or I die.) The man in this group was determined to involve me in their chatter, but I wasn’t having it. I almost came to his rescue when he made a Peter Frampton reference and the young ladies in his company didn’t know who he was talking about. “Really? ‘Frampton Comes Alive’? This isn’t ringing any sort of bells?” he said, and then beseeched me with his eyes to tell him that he wasn’t as old as they now suspected, but he was, and I didn’t. I wanted to read my book. This was an unprecedented opportunity to read more than one page at a sitting, and I wasn’t giving it up for some overly talkative steward of the skies.

Toward the end of the flight he kept handing me Fun Packs of M&Ms. I wish I could tell you why. He was so proud that he could go in the back and get all the M&M Fun Packs he wanted. But I didn’t want them, and this made him sad. Over and over, he waved them in my face, I shook my head, he insisted, I put them in my purse and kept reading. After we landed he tried to give me another one, and I barked, “Fucking hell, do you think I’m eight?” and he blushed and I took the damn thing.

Anyone want a Fun Pack of M&Ms? I have 38 of them. They may have lost their integrity, however, as it is 156 degrees here. With the humidity, the heat index is 218.

Now that it’s 397 degrees outside, Charlie the Dog and I differ over the appropriate amount of time for him to spend basking in the sun. For me the ideal amount of time is zero seconds. I told him this, and he said, “For me it’s zero times infinity, Dude!” and I had to tell him that anything multiplied with zero equals zero. We argued over that for a while, and then he decided that he loves the sun to infinity times infinity, PLUS zero; I don’t know why he had to add the zero. I suspect it’s pride.

It doesn’t matter that the sky is on fire and the tree sap is boiling and causing the tree limbs to shoot straight up into the flaming sky and strike the sun, which causes more molten sun bits to rain down on us. Charlie wants to lie down on our asphalt driveway as it turns to soup and his bones become cinders. I placed a bowl of water next to him and he looked at me like, you wimp. Water is for cowards. I do not fear a little heat.

So I said, okay, dog. You want to die, knock yourself out. I stood by the door and watched him because I didn’t mean it. Approximately two minutes later, he lurched himself up to standing. His lips curled at the corners and he staggered to the side of the yard and puked his doggy guts out.

Now will you listen? I asked him, but he ignored me. I tried to drag him inside. He headed right back to the sunny patch of asphalt. This sun, he said, is lovely.

As I was cursing and trying to drag the dog back inside, Henry came out to see what was the matter. “Charlie won’t go inside,” I said, and he asked why, and I said, “He’s a little dumb.”

This was a mistake. Henry balled up his fists and pointed them at me. “He is NOT DUMB,” he screamed. “That is NOT A NICE thing to say.”

Now, Henry calls everything dumb. It is in fact his favorite word. Everything is dumb. Shoes are dumb. The pool yesterday was dumb, as people were splashing. Splashing is also dumb. Peeing in the toilet is dumb. That’s dumb , he says by way of explanation. He says it sadly and with great pity. I can’t eat this grilled cheese, you see, because it is, well, dumb.

I thought dumb was an apt word for a being who actively seeks out heat stroke, but now I had to apologize. And Henry called Charlie, who got right up and trotted back inside, and they both looked back at me in disgust.

Actually only Henry looked back at me. Charlie didn’t because he’s an idiot.

*What can I say that hasn’t been said? It was amazing, overwhelming, frustrating, exhausting, fantastic, etc.. I met so many great people and have so many new blogs to read. And I’ll get right on that, as soon as the temperature dips below 634.