Best Family Halloween Costume This Year

Claws down - best family costume of the year! 

It would be perfect if you could get 3 kids in that pot...

A Look Back At My Favorite Halloween Story..."Illegal Activity"

I illegally entered someone's home the other day.  I didn't mean to.  My intentions were honorable.  I was just looking for cake.

Security rolled by in a golfcart and eyeballed me as I ran out the front door of some woman's home dressed in a toga and clinging a handful of cash.

Let me back up.

Last week was my boyfriend's birthday.  Friday night we had ten of his old friends over for Baked Ziti, and Martinis.  I wanted it to be a perfect evening.  Of course, this meant ordering the perfect cake.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip cake with Bittersweet Buttercream Scharffengerger Chocolate frosting.  Ten inches and 4 layers of beautiful, fudgey, chippy and tasty perfection made by Laura's Cake Kitchen (you may know her as Laura from My Life Is a Piece Of Cake.  She's a cakey genius and she likes to get paid in cash).

Friday was also the last day of school before Halloween - which means ALL THREE kids had Halloween parties in their classes AS WELL AS a halloween parade on the school yard.

So as soon as I drop off my kids at school, I'm making ziti, moving furniture, setting the table, polishing my grandmother's silver and laying out china my sister later tells me shouldn't be eaten on because it contains lead.

By 11:30 the sauce is made, the ziti is boiled, the table is set and the flowers are arranged.

I put on my costume (the kids insisted I wear one in a show of solidarity - I was Athena, Goddess of Wisdom).  I grab my daughters stuffed owl to accentuate my Goddessness (Athena's symbol - but I don't think she carried a Webkinz) and ran out the door.  (Complicated hairdo shown in photo).

I spent the next hour and a half running from classroom to classroom as a part of my own personal "no child left behind" policy and managed to help get each party up and running. 

I looked at my watch.  I had a 1 hour window till the Halloween Parade started on the school yard.

I thought about the cake waiting for me across town at Laura's house.  Could I make it?  It's tight.

I took a chance.

I made it to her housing complex in 20 minutes.  I park.  I call Laura on the phone to tell her I'm at her house.  Meanwhile, she's at HER kids school applying Vampire make-up to one of her four children, but she says the door to her house is open and the cake is waiting. 

I walk in to the house while talking to her on the phone so she can direct me where to go.

I tell her "Laura, I'm putting the cash on your dining room under the brush on the table.  Next to the pumpkin."

She's distracted. "Okay.  No Luke, the blood looks good there."  

I keep walking through the house. "I'm heading into your kitchen."  There's a child's scream on the other end of the phone.  I look in the fridge.  No cake.  My stomach drops.  Someone stole my cake!

"Laura!  There's no cake in here!"

"It's right there."  She says.

"I'm looking in your fridge right now and there is no cake."

"It's not in the fridge.  Why are you in the fridge?"

"I thought you said it's in the fridge."

"It's not in the fridge.  It's on the dining room table.  Luke, stop playing with your blood."

"Oh."  I close the fridge and walk back out.

No cake.

"Laura.  There's no cake on the table!"  I'm hyperventilating...visions of fudgy goodness slipping through my fingers.

"It's right there!"

"NO!  It's not!  There's just a big pumpkin!"

"What's with the pumpkin!  There's no pumpkin.  Only a cake."

"I'm looking at your table and there's no cake.  There's a pumpkin and some placemats..."

"Placemats?  I don't have placemats on the table.  Where are you?"

"I'm in your living room.  I'm looking at your TV area, there's a pink wooden kitchen in the corner - oh, that's cute..."

She's hysterical laughing on the end of the line.  "Sarah...you're in the wrong house."

I am suddenly very aware of the fact that I have just raided some stranger's fridge, and am now standing in the middle of their living room dressed like a drunk sorority girl.  I grabbed my cash from under the hairbrush and took off out the door, JUST in time for security to drive by.

I think he would have stopped me for questioning if I hadn't been dressed in a toga, clinging to a small furry owl, and bent over, crying of laughter on some woman's front lawn.  I think he was afraid.  I would be. 

I went to the house next door, found my cake, left the cash and hopped back in my car.

I made it back to my kids' school JUST in time for the first graders to make their rounds on the school track in their costumes.

I took a ton of pictures as each child smiled as they passed me on the track.   Completely unaware that their mother narrowly escaped the law.  Again.

Unless of course there's an APB out right now for a tall, middle-aged brunette woman in a toga carrying a stuffed owl.  Check your local post offices and let me know.

P.S.  The cake was CRAZY FANTASTIC!

Originally published on MommyLITEonline.com on 11/1/09, but if feels like last week...

'Girl's Night Out' Results In Jeff Goldblum Encounter...

I love Jeff Goldblum.

The kind of love that Ryan Reynolds elicits from the 20-something crowd.

Maybe it's because he's tall and sexy and always plays such incredibly brilliant characters.  What Jewish girl wouldn't swoon for a tall sexy man who can so aptly spew James Glick's theory of chaos?  In fact, one could say I married my ex husband because of Jeff Goldblum.  He's tall and smart.  But ultimately, he fell short of Jeff Goldblum and had to go.  Sure there were other reasons the marriage didn't work, but I prefer to look at it like this.

So last month when a girlfriend and I were out for drinks at The BLVD (by the way - GREAT place for drinks and dinner if you're in LA.  Nice crowd it's not too loud and the drinks and snacks are spectacular.)  I got a very nice surprise.

My girlfriend comes back from the bathroom and says "I just saw Jeff Goldblum."

"WHAT?!  WHERE?!"

"In the bathroom.  Well, not in the bathroom, outside of the bathroom, walking into the men's room."

"Oh MY GOD! REALLY????!!  I LOVE HIM!  Be right back..."  I dashed to the bathroom area and stood around look aloof.  "Just a girl....standing outside the bathroom...checking her email.  Nothing going on here...." was my modus operendi.  Thank God for smart phones or I'd have looked like a stalker.

I'm not sure exactly what I thought was going to happen.  I knew I wanted to see what he looked like in person and to confirm he was worthy of my fan lust.  Maybe I thought he'd be so intrigued by this tall, aloof woman who hangs out near bathrooms that he'd ask to join me and my friend for a drink.  Of course, he'd find me fascinating and we'd become close friends.  Perhaps he and I would talk story and characters until dawn and then he'd make Jeff Goldblum love to me.  Scott should be cool with it of course.  I mean, he is Jeff Goldblum.   So I continued to hang around outside the bathroom.  But he was nowhere to be seen.  Darn.  No Jeff Goldblum.  I waited a little longer.

After writing several pretend emails I went back to the table, dejected.

"I didn't see him."

"Sorry.  I had no idea you liked Jeff Goldblum so much."

"Correction.  Love Jeff Goldblum so much."

"Even in The Fly?  He was like half insect.  Ew."

"Well, not AS the fly.  But he was good in the movie.  And sexy in the beginning."

"I can see that."

The next day she called and said "Guess what?!  I just got tickets for "Seminar" with Jeff Goldblum!  Come with me??!

"REALLY???!!  I'D LOVE to!!!!"  Now that's a good friend.

So last night we went to see Jeff Goldblum in Seminar.

I planned my outfit carefully.  I wore high platform heels so that if Jeff Goldblum saw me standing around the Mark Taper theatre he'd notice how tall and spectacular I am.  Okay, he'd notice I'm tall.  I wasn't sure exactly how Jeff Goldblum would notice me - but I wanted to be ready if it happened.  I even wore a little mascara and touched up my lips - you know - cause I thought Jeff Goldblum would like it.  My boyfriend was amused.

"You don't care if I have sex with Jeff Goldblum, right?"

"No, Honey.  You go ahead and have sex with Jeff Goldblum."

"Thanks!"  I gave him a kiss on his head and he smirked at me as I left the house giddy like a teenage girl on her first date.

Well, the show was fantastic.  And of course, Jeff Goldblum was fantastic.  And the fact that he played a tortured, sex-hungry writing teacher only fueled my fantasies.  So he didn't notice me in the audience and our eyes never met.  So he'd never know how intriguing I am.  At least I got to see him perform live.  That was enough to fuel my future fantasies.

My friends indulged me after the show and we walked around to the stage door so see if we could see him.

When he came out he smiled at me.  A big toothy smile.  I think I smiled ear to ear.  I might have blushed.  Yeah.  We had a moment - not that he had a choice but to have "a moment" with me since I was like 6'1" in my shoes and practically in his face.

He said "Hi!"  I melted.

"Hi.  Um, can I take a picture with you?"

"OF COURSE!!!!  Come here!"  I stiffly stood next to him, respecting his personal bubble and he pulled me in closer holding my waist.  Yummy!  He was adorable.  And he smelled good.  Poor Scott.

"You were really great in the show.  We loved it."

"Thank you!  I'm so glad you liked it!  Here let's get one like this."  And he put his face next to mine.  If he only knew how much I adored him, he might have been very afraid to do this.  I was grateful I looked like a normal person on the outside.

My friend said "We actually saw you at The BLVD a few weeks ago."

"The BLVD? Where's that?"

"In the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills?"

"Hmm...I don't think that was me."

Then my friend said "Oh.  Oh well."

Way to insult Jeff Goldblum.

He politely took a few more pictures with us, shook my hand and gave me a little eye contact that I like to interpret as "I would fall instantly for you - you tall, fascinating stranger - but I bet you already have a great man in your life and I don't want to get in the way."  Yes.  That's precisely what he was saying.

Then Jeff Goldblum got into his car and went home.  Leaving me behind.  Oh well.

So I dedicate this post to Jeff Goldblum and thank him, wherever he is for a great show.  You are as sexy, smart and adorable as I imagined.

And if you ever want to get those drinks...

 

Me and Jeff Goldblum, planning our future together...

How To Deal With A Mom You Hate

I had to share this.

The hilarious Daphne Brogdon of CoolMom.com fame just launched her new CafeMom.com webseries "How to be a Mom."  (Can you guess who was the flakey, bitchy and boring mom or are you fooled by the changing hairdo?)

You're going to laugh out loud.  Really. 

Enjoy!