My Heart Is On Fire For Elvira

Hiya, beautiful bouncing BOOBHs!  How goes it?  Sorry I didn't hop on yesterday to give you the Halloweenie recap post; I actually took the day off from my "real job" so that I could focus on writing the eBay book.  We've got our first big deadline coming up in two weeks, and lots to do before then.  I'm feeling good though!  I purchased my final item yesterday (finally!!) and the end of my first draft phase is in sight.  Then come the edits...  duhn duhn DUUUUUUHHHHNNNN.

Anyfloozy, I'm sure you're all dying to know if I managed to pull off being Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, last Saturday night, right?  Of course you are!

See for yourself:

 In a word, yes.
I think I did pull it off.  I may have been Elvira after having two kids and indulging in lots of beer and pizza for a few years, but I was Elvira, goddamn it!  Everyone seemed to really dig the costume, and I really enjoyed vamping it up.  In fact, we all stayed "in character" all night, and it was an absolute blast!  I was so psyched to see all of the cool, creative costumes at this party we went to.  People went all out!  As soon as we got there I vowed to take our pictures with as many interesting costumes as possible, and I definitely reached that goal.  The next day I realized we (other people used my camera too)  had taken 168 photos.

Holy crap!

Obviously I can't post them ALL here, and my Facebook friends are probably already sick of looking at them, but here are a few highlights from our night of EEEEVIL.

Enter... if you dare!

I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking.  They are worth 1,000 words, ya know.

BEFORE the wig, make-up, and generalized debauchery:

After, along with bitchin' bee Mala and ghostly gal Laurie:

Meg and Eric went as "Adam and Steve"

"Steve" took a page from the "Spinal Tap" book:

Who ya' gonna call?

Jim made a pretty hot Dracula, I've gotta say:

Pretty sure we don't want to know what they were talking about:

This pic is all blurry.  Can't imagine why.

Time for a little snack!  This was right before the cow squirted me from his udder... with what we hope was water:

Then some boogying:

Joe won 3rd Place in the costume competition for his EXCELLENT Billy the Exterminator get-up. Big UPS go to Mala, Costume Designer, Extraordinaire!

By the end of the night I had sweated off all of my make-up and my wig was making a getaway off the back of my head, but it didn't matter.  We all had a great time!

I actually have some other (even worse) pics but for some reason they didn't get uploaded last night.  Oops!  I know, I know -- that's the virtual equivalent of leaving my wallet in my other pants.  Sorry 'bout that.  I'll have to put up the picture of me pretending to fellate the priest another day.  Something to look forward to, that.

How was YOUR Halloween?  Got any good stories to tell?  Let's hear 'em!!

As Promised....

Dearest FOOBHs,

The pics from my birthday boozefest bash are here.

Enjoy, and we'll talk more tomorrow when I'm not quite so sleepy.

*MWAH*

La Bev

Rock Stars Wear Spanx Too, Right?

HI! Fancy meeting you here! Good to see you again.

First of all, thank you for all of your fabulous birthday wishes last week! Seriously, each one made my day a little bit brighter, and I feel gratitude from the bottom of my boogity-boogity shoes. *MWAH* to all of my darling FOOBHS!!

I am back today after having pretty much unplugged myself from the Matrix since last Wednesday, and I confess that I'm still not fully into the swing of things yet. I came into work today to find the usual piles of random paperwork and unintelligible post-it notes from my crazy-cat-lady-coworker, but after I sifted through the rubble I found that I really hadn't missed much during my 3 days off last week. Hurray!

And no, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

My birthday party went off without a hitch on Saturday night! It was pretty epic, and I do believe that everyone had a really, really good time. Of course there are lots of pictures but sadly I don't have many today. For a change I didn't have my trusty Nikon attached to my wrist all night so I didn't get that many pics, however my friends Mark and Laurie spoiled me and set up a whole "red carpet" photo area complete with fancy lighting and a gorgeous custom-made background poster, so once they send me those pics we'll have lots to look at!

Wardrobe malfunctions galore.

Last week I bought a sparkly rock star dress that I love, but the material is very thin - like t-shirt thin. Since I am not a skinny minnie I was critically eying every lump and bump under the thin blue fabric, so I did what all of us ladies do in such a situation - I went to the lingerie department and bought myself a scuba suit foundation garment. Once I wriggled into it, which is NOT easy, by the way, I liked how smooth things looked under the dress, so I bought it and decided I just wouldn't go to the bathroom all night since getting the thing up and down was such a chore.

Sounds like a great plan, right?

What nobody tells you about these modern-day torture devices is that they never stay where they're supposed to stay. Once the garment begins its steady retreat towards your waist (as they ALL do) the flab that they're repressing migrates so you end up with unsightly bulges in the most bizarre places imaginable.

Therefore it came to be that my muffin top ended up somewhere just south of my bra strap all night long, so any photo of me from behind includes a stunning view of my seemingly-deformed torso. Needless to say, at some point in the evening my friend Jill and I both discarded our painful fat-compressors. Jim found mine the next morning in the back yard. Oops.

Then there was the little matter of the top half of the dress. When I purchased it I had no idea that whatever bra I wore was destined to become part of the outfit; I went with basic black, which is good because in just about every picture you can see my bra under my arms. Sigh.

My (real & spectacular) cleavage, however, looked fantastic. Everybody said so.

Thanks to our MALE photographer Mark, there are LOTS of boob-centric pics, so you're welcome in advance. Especially you, Mike129, since I know you only come here for the pics. *grin*

I'm now a gimp.

As soon as everyone arrived the men went outside and did dog-knows what and the ladies gathered in the kitchen to sample my newly-created signature cocktail, the Bevtini. It's purple and tastes like black cherry and has lots and lots of delicious vodka in it, and we all had quite a few of them. Once we were sufficiently limbered up we went out to the back yard and started the karaoke machine that Mala had rented for us as a gift, because she ROCKS.

People were singing, drinking, taking pictures in front of the "red carpet" background, and generally frolicking. I was chatting away when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Laurie grinning at me. She informed me that they were doing keg stands, and after I stopped laughing and told her that there was no fucking chance of getting me to do one, she asked me to come hold the tap into her mouth as they lifted her up.



I obliged, and no sooner had they gotten her into the air than the entire nearly-full keg and the wheelbarrow in which it sat tipped over and landed on my right foot/ankle.

Wait -- a wheelbarrow, which as we all know rests on THREE points, not four, wasn't stable?! GO FIGURE!

We wuz wicked smaht, yo.

So yeah, my ankle hurt like a mofo despite all the "anesthesia" coarsing through my veins. I immediately grabbed a chunk of ice and iced it, but it was already swelling and turning all kinds of colors. Thankfully this is when Emily brought out a tray of (purely medicinal) Tequila shots, so I don't remember it hurting much after that point.

Artist's rendering of me around 1 AM:

By 2 AM I found myself wedged onto the couch with my foot elevated with a bag of frozen vegetables draped over it.

Nothing's broken, it's just bruised as hell and swollen. And painful. Oh well!

Speaking of painful, yesterday morning was no picnic. I woke up feelin' like P. Diddy... complete with a false eyelash stuck to my forehead.



It was the stone groove, m' man. Good effing times with good effing friends! I only wish you ALL could have been there.

Hopefully tomorrow there will be more photographic proof of our idiocy good time.

Jabba, Smiley, and a Shack of Crap

Good morning! What's shakin', cute people of the interwebz? Not too much going on here; just struggling to clear the cobwebs from my noggin! It sure was hard to get out of bed this morning.

Can't imagine why.

Crap Shack, party of 7!

We rented a cottage near the shore that turned out to be the shittiest place EVER and we all did our best not to touch anything. I was seriously concerned about bed bugs, but thankfully the sheets and towels were clean even if the floor wasn't. The walls were paper thin; if you tapped on the wall the whole thing shook. Mala & Joe had a gaping hole in the ceiling of their room, and M&E's room slanted noticeably towards one corner. It was like a fun house!

Luckily we were barely there and it was a place to crash, though as Jim and I lay down on our glorified sofa bed and listened to the loud college kids partying in our front yard (which sounded like they were in the room with us due to the aforementioned thin walls) we both started giggling uncontrollably.

I didn't take pictures because it was just too horrifying, but I'll describe it to you with my mad English skillz:

Our room contained a lumpy double bed, a dresser, a bare light bulb with the string dangling from the center of the room, and a rather pungent odor. I shudder to think about what sorts of things have gone on in that "house" every weekend, but let the record show that when Mala arrived and turned on the TV it was tuned to a porno channel. That explains why the wooden arms of the dilapidated (circa 1978) sofa were STICKY. Seriously, I have slept in cleaner frat houses.

The cost of one night in Slumsville? A mere $250/night (split 3 ways). FML!

I need a miracle.

But ANYWAY. As soon as we fought our way through the shore traffic (took us 45 minutes to go a quarter of a mile) we got the party started, at which point I remembered that I was a bird brain left our two tickets to the show at home. *FACE-PALM* I carried those goddamn tickets in my purse for TWO MONTHS, but the day of the show I decided to carry a smaller purse.... FML again!

Thankfully, the show was not sold out and it was nothing that a short walk and another $40 couldn't fix. Sigh.

Jabba wants his money.

The band was great and since it was general admission we wormed our way right up front again. The only bummer was Jabba, who was easily 6'4" yet insisted upon standing in the front row, and even when we tried to move several feet to his left or right he seemed to migrate so that he was always right in front of one of us. He was a hulking, disapproving WALL of a man, and he was stubbornly in our way all night.

Nice bum, where you from?

The music was awesome!

Close your eyes and it's the real thing, and definitely the closest thing to really seeing Zeppelin that we'll ever get.

The Battle of Evermore was epic.

Mmm, smokey.

I'll have what he's having!

The bass player, who we dubbed "Smiley," was a trip. He had perfected the "rock star stance" and was clearly enjoying every minute of the show. He had this huge shit-eating grin and kept making eye contact with audience members, including yours truly. It was fun but a little awkward; I'd smile back but then he'd just keep on grinning at me until I kind of danced behind Jabba to hide. One time it went on so long that everyone in my group noticed and were laughing about it, and I took this picture:

Slappin' da bass!

That little bit of contact was NOTHING compared to what Mala got after the show, however! She stood in line to meet the band while the rest of us hung back (I had had enough contact with Smiley during the show, thankyouverymuch), and she got a chance to chat it up with her crush, the keyboardist/guitar player (and Grade A Hottie).

While we waited for Mala to stop shamelessly flirting we admired the mural of famous folks behind the bar. We decided this is George "C3PO" Carlin:



The next morning we eagerly skipped out of the Crap Shack and went home. I spent most of my day watching the kids play in their kiddie pool and reading trashy magazines before moving on to a trashy novel. I started reading Secret Diary of a Call-Girl, which is the book that inspired the sexy Showtime series. I'm only about 40 pages in but already I can tell you that it's a decent read, doesn't require a lot of brain power, and is absolutely filthy! So of course, I dig it.

So that's all the news that's fit to report. Good times, as always! Now it's back to the grind. Gotta find something else to look forward to; it sure does help to get me through the week.

May I be Frank?

As predicted, our evening with the illustrious Frank Irwin (of blogging fame) was fabulous, and I think that I speak for Mala when I say that we thoroughly enjoyed his company. IRL Frank is exactly like Online Frank, which is to say that he is witty, polite, and what do you know? He can even get goofy with La Bev and Malomatic!

Frank want BRAINS!



Mala and I arrived in Boston and set ourselves up on a bench outside of Cheers in Faneuil Hall to await our gentleman caller. After a few minutes, we started regretting not making Frank show up in a colorful Hawaiian shirt because we spotted about four dopplegangers before I saw a guy that we were pretty sure was Frank sitting about 100 yards away. We argued for a few minutes over whether it was him or not; I thought it was him, but Mala, who has that odd non-memory when it comes to recognizing faces, did not. Finally we mustered the courage to approach him and he promptly pretended not to know us.

Howdy, lil' ladies.

I fell for it, because I'm terribly gullible like that. *BLUSH* Being the gentleman that he is Frank then produced two wilted dandelion stems from his pocket, and of course, we swooned.

We went to a seafood place and Frank totally copied me and ordered the same thing. Mala and I proceeded to kill a bottle of wine while Frank sipped iced tea, but by the time the check came, he was ready to branch out to more exotic drinks.

Enter the Bleu Cheese and Bacon Martini.

As soon as I took my first sip I remembered that I hate gin, so I only managed to choke down about half of the $14 gag-inducing concoction. Frank was good enough to finish ours for us, though. See? Told ya his manners were impeccable!

We even had time to do a little light shopping.

After dinner we hit the streets in search of a good time, only to be told that the comedy show at Cheers wasn't happening that night. We found a few other ways to entertain ourselves before heading to the North End to an improv club.







Turns out the improv club S-U-C-K-E-D ball sack (we bailed at intermission), but we managed to have a good time anyway.

Can you explain this picture? 'Cuz I sure can't!

We ended our evening with one last late-night nightcap at The Hard Rock Cafe, where the death metal was so loud that what was left of my voice high-tailed it out of there and didn't dare show its face again until around 2 PM the next day. True story.


As you can tell, a good time was had by all! I do hope we can arrange for more bloggy buddy meet & greets. It is so nice to find that the people you talk to every day are just as nice in person as they pretend to be online.

So there 'tis! Mala and Frank will both be posting their version of the night's events today, so be sure to head on over to their blogs for the untold stories and more pics!

Buh-bye now!

You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry.

Good Monday morning!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and as usual I'm tired as hell and hating my crap job. In other words, not much is new.

Groovy weekend, though! On Saturday night we went to the House of Blues in Boston to see a Led Zeppelin cover band called Get The Led Out. The Malas had seen them before and loved them, and as always our friends did not steer us wrong. Within five minutes of watching them we all agreed that:

1. they rock really, really hard, and
2. we're totally seeing them when they come to Hampton Beach in June. Yes, we're officially GTLO groupies, or Band-Aids, or whatever the heck you wanna call it.



Check out the devil eyes that I'm too lazy to fix! "Don't mess with the Devils! The Devils!!!" ~ David Puddy

It was a fun, fun night - we all get along so well and I really like our new friends M&E. I daresay that despite the fact that she's about as big as a minute, M can even keep up with La Bev & Mala when it comes to cocktails! She's one of us... it's official.


Her husband E and my husband are also having quite the bromance, which inspired us to re-watch the movie, I Love You, Man last night. We'd only seen it once and forgot how funny it is! It's a cute movie and a definite must for Rush fans. So many good lines - after the first viewing we left saying, "Slappin' da bass," but after last night I woke up giggling about "Totes, McGotes."

Anywhooooo. Not much else to report. I'll leave you with this little funny, since I do love to leave ya' laughing if at all possible. The advertising people at Snickers are really hitting 'em out of the park lately, and since it's a well-known (and documented) fact that I get a little... um, cranky when I'm hungry... this commercial really spoke to me!



But you all know that if I'm going to turn into (more of) a diva, I'm gonna be GAGA.



Later, taters!

Excellent First-Impressions Are Kind of My Thing

Good morning! How are my adorable & oh-so-lovable readers this morning? I hope you're all doing well. I've got a minor case of the Mondays, but nothing I can't handle. It's a gray, rainy day 'round these parts and I want nothing more than to fake a plague and go home early, but I will tough it out. I think. We'll see.

The weekend was nice. We went to a super fun dinner party at Mala's house on Saturday night. They recently met a nice couple whose kids are the same ages as Mala's kids, and they thought we'd like them too. They were right - we all hit it off immediately and had a great time together. We're all very down to earth, which is good because the second we met I blurted out,

"Do you have a bag of poo? 'Cuz I do!"

Let me explain. We had arrived about 45 minutes before they did and we had already dipped into the first of many bottles of wine. Mala was setting out plate after plate of amazing appetizers and we were happily snacking and chatting when my 2 y.o. wandered his stinky self in and sat next to me, asking for cheese. As fate would have it and because I am an amazing mother (ahem), I had brought a few diapers with me but hadn't bothered with wipes. I mean, the kid had already crapped twice that day, so I figured we were cool on the numero dos, right? WRONG.

So J and I grabbed him and some wet paper towels and took him to the bathroom to take care of bidness just as Mala was greeting E & M at the door. We were quick and thorough, but when all was said & done I was left holding a plastic shopping bag containing the world's stinkiest diaper. Obviously I didn't want to just put it in the bathroom or worse, in the kitchen trash, so I slunk into the kitchen amidst all the hubbub of introductions, coat-taking, etc, and tried to get Mala's attention to ask where to stash my bag of crap. E & M had brought their dog, and E was holding a similar looking bag and looking as bashful about it as I was, and since I'm kind of the gregarious type (What? You haven't noticed?) I stuck out my hand and used that little ice-breaker above.

I'm not sure he knew quite what to do with me, especially when it turned out that his bag contained not dog poo but dog food, but he had the good manners to laugh and I'm pretty sure I won him over by the end of the night. Hopefully he didn't mind the rather inauspicious start to our friendship.

Oh, and he ended up getting reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaally partied-out by the end of the night; as in, he slipped into a semi-catatonic state and didn't speak or move for at least an hour until my husband had to help him to his car so his wife could drive him home.... So I think we're even. :)

We played some Guitar Hero, but I was playing terribly. I was tipsy, sure, but even drunk I usually do better than 64%, which was my average during this session. It wasn't until Mala picked up the guitar later that she realized that I had been playing in left-handed mode the whole time, which explains why everything on the screen was backwards. OOOOPS. Oh well, at least I'm not losing my GH skillz - I was worried! It's bad enough that I can't belt out the tunes, don't take my awesome ax-wielding talents too!

On Sunday I spent most of the morning shuffling from couch to fridge and sipping water. Yes, I had the mother of all Box O' Wine-induced hangovers. J had gotten up and out early to go skiing and my oldest son slept really late since he'd been up running with the pack of kids the night before, so it was just me and M watching Curious George for most of the morning.

The one good thing about a bad hangover is that I won't feel like imbibing again for a loooooong while. This is especially good news for my ass, which seems to have expanded recently when I wasn't paying attention. Sigh. It's time to buckle down because we're going on vacation in Florida at the end of April and I don't want to be mistaken for Shamu when we hit Seaworld. So no booze this month... except for when we go see Get The Led Out in Boston in two weeks. Other than that, I'm determined to shrink my assets before stuffing them into a tankini and hitting the chaise lounge!

I'm also considering trying a spray tan before we go, which sounds like excellent blog-fodder... especially if I end up looking like an Oompa Loompa, as I suspect that I will. Stay tuned!

Wish me luck! Have a great day. *MUAH*