The cover for my new book has arrived!

Or, more precisely, Scenes From the Chanel Make-up Counter at the Palm Beach Neiman Marcus:
(1) A woman who had breasts so large, they looked like two coconuts velcroed to her chest;
(2) A couple pushing a pair of matching strollers: his contained a set of twins, hers a shi-tzu;
(3) A bevy of skinny fashion models slinking around in $14,000 outfits, one of whom looked exactly like Angelina Jolie. “You look exactly Angelina Jolie,” I told her, unable to keep the envy out of my voice. “If I had a dime for every time someone told me that,” she said, rolling her eyes, as though having to humor such comparisons was unbearably tiresome. Yeah, life is tough;
(4) Patti LaBelle and entourage. Although, the entourage only consisted of two people — both of whom had cell phones fastened to their ears — so I don’t know if that really counts as an entourage. I’m not an expert in these matters, but I would think an entourage would have to consist of a minimum of four people, at least one of whom is paying attention to you.

My friend and fellow Literary Chick, Lani Diane Rich, has been nominated for a RITA award for her fabulous book, Ex and the Single Girl!
Congratulations, Lani!!!
Update: And even more good news from the land of Literary Chicks! Alesia Holliday has also been nominated for a RITA award, for her delicous novella in The Naked Truth Anthology!!!
Congratulations, Alesia!!!

Today was Bitchy Mom day at the park.
Like the chick who got all snippy when my friend’s son touched her son’s discarded plastic truck. (Hello? They’re TODDLERS. And she didn’t seem to mind it when her son was playing with our buckets and shovels.)
“I just don’t want him to break it,” she said, in a grating nasal tone, as she snatched the seemingly indestructible plastic Tonka truck back.
Right. Because clearly my friend’s son has superhuman baby bionic strength.
Or the other mom — friend of the first, natch — whose daughter knocked Sam over when he walked in front of her swing. It wasn’t the little girl’s fault, but Jesus H., you’d think the mom would have at least asked if he was okay, considering her child left tread marks on Sam’s cheek. Instead the mother just gave me a cold look, clearly put out that my son’s head had gotten in the way.
I considered handing out sugar packets to their kids (see if they’ll nap now, ha HA), but instead decided to gracefully rise above it. Inner poise, as Bridget Jones would say.

I’ve been trying to teach Sam to say, “I’m sorry,” when he does something naughty. You know, like winging a toy across the living room in a fit of temper, or giving his dad a karate chop in the testicles.
Up until yesterday, he’d been resisting this lesson in manners, much as he resisted saying “please” and “thank you.” (Although he did start using “please” when it connected for him that this was a way to get something he wants. Now he uses it incessantly. “Pweese!” he yells, waving his hand at the fleet of tractors at the Home Depot. “Dream on,” I tell him.)
Yesterday, however, we finally had a breakthrough on the sorry front.
During dinner, Sam very deliberately dumped his pizza on to the floor.
“Sam! No!” I admonished him.
“Naughty, naughty Lulu,” he said innocently, perfectly prepared to blame this transgression on the dog.
“You’re getting a time out for that,” I declared. (Yes, I use time outs. I’m aware that in some quarters, this makes me a Bad Mother, but I don’t care. So please refrain from e-mailing me links to web pages that warn how time outs turn children into future serial killers. I’m going to take my chances.)
“What do you say?” I asked, when I retrieved him at the end of the time out period.
Silence.
“I’m . . .,” I prompted.
Still, nothing.
“I’m . . . sorry. I’m sorry. Can you say that?”
Sam furrowed his brow.
“Look, you’re not getting out of time out until you say it,” I threaten. “Come on. Say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
After a long pause, in which Sam weighed staying in boring time out against giving in to me on this point. Finally, the threat of boredom won out.
“I sorry,” he said, with a devilish smile that belied the words.
So now he says it . . . but I just don’t get the feeling that he means it.

So we’re at Target, and I try on a pair of funky sunglasses, and then turn to show them to George.
Me: Do I look like Britney in these?
George: More like Starsky.
Me:
George: Kidding! I was kidding!
Me: [huffily] That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.
George: [soothingly] No, it’s not.
Me: Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you’ve said meaner things than that I look like a 70′s-era scruffy police officer?
George: [desperate for a diversion] Look! Easter candy!
Me: Oooo! Where?

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
Graham Greene nearly cured my insomnia.
The Heart of the Matter was only 250 pages long, but it took me over a week to read it . . . mostly because it was so incredibly boring, three pages was enough to send me into a torpor.
THOTM is set in Sierra Leone during World War II. Our hero, Henry Scobie, is a principled police officer suffering with a serious case of ennui. He’s been passed over for a promotion, is married to the tedious, poetry-loving Louise, and is sort of, kind of grieving the death of their only child.
Louise’s non-stop whining about how unhappy she is and how much she hates living in Africa finally pushes Scobie over the moral edge. He borrows money from a shady, diamond smuggler to send her to South Africa. This he does because he feels the heavy weight of responsibility for her happiness, but let’s face it: getting rid of her markedly improves his life.
While Louise is away, Scobie begins an affair with a teenage widow, Helen, who turns out to be every bit as whiny and difficult as Louise. Scobie feels responsible for her happiness, just as he feels responsible for Louise’s, which puts him in a difficult position when Louise suddenly decides to come back home to repair their strained marriage.
Sounds romantic, huh? Well, it’s not. In fact, Greene goes to great lengths to ensure that all passion is crushed out of THOTM. As we’re told on nearly every other page, Scobie doesn’t have any passion for either Louise or Helen. He’s first drawn to them because of their ugliness and vulnerability, as well as some sort of compulsive need to be responsible for needy women. There’s nothing remotely attractive about either woman – or about Scobie for that matter – which makes the constant “Do you love me, because I love you” conversations all the more tedious.
Oh, yeah. And then there’s the religious angle. Mostly the book is supposed to be about one man’s faith, and his fall from grace. Scobie spends a lot meditating on his Catholicism and his relationship with God. Unsurprisingly, this closely resembles the relationship he has with the women in his life: it’s one of duty and disappointment and unhappy endings.
THOTM is boring and depressing, but excellent reading for a late night when you can’t sleep. Nearly as good as a Tylenol P.M. and a mug of hot milk. I rate it a C.

Here’s some advice: don’t put your dog’s bed in the washing machine. Even if it is crusted with smelly doggy puke.
In not totally unrelated news, our new washing machine is being delivered this afternoon.

To celebrate the release of Eileen’s new book, Un-Bridaled, it’s wedding week over at the Literary Chicks! Check out the story behind my elopement (and see a picture of my pretty, pretty dress) here.

Sam adores Thomas the Train. Adores him. He carries his Percy train around, kissing it and announcing, “I love Percy. I love trains.” It’s very cute.
So when we found out that Day Out With Thomas — where you can take a ride on an actual, real life Thomas the Train — was coming to Miami, we knew we had to take him. So what if it was two hours away? So what if the tickets were twenty bucks a pop? What price a child’s happiness?
Yeah, well. This is what you get for your twenty dollars: Get on the train. Ride the train as it moves very slowly down the track for about five minutes, stops, and then backs up in the opposite direction for five minutes. Repeat once. Get off the train. Get herded into a giant Thomas merchandising area. Go home.
Complete fucking rip-off.
Happily, we salvaged the day by heading over to the Miami Metro Zoo, which is about the nicest zoo I’ve ever been to, and Sam had a ball running around and saying hello to all of the animals: “Hi, Gorilla! Bye, Gorilla! Hi, Turtle! Bye, Turtle!”
Although, it was his third zoo in three weeks, and he was getting a bit blase about the whole thing.
“Look, Sam, a zebra!” we’d say.
And he’d shrug, as if to say, “Yeah, so? There are zebras everywhere. Oh, but look! A discarded bottle! Cool!”