You Have Lipstick On Your Teeth | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

We had our very first book signing for “You Have Lipstick On Your Teeth”! It was just such a great evening that we’re having a hard time deciding which was our favorite part.

Want to know about the penguin? Come to a book signing.

Ellen: Was the best part meeting and hanging with our talented co-authors Anna Sandler of Random Handprints, Kim Forde of Fordeville Diaries, and Kim Bongiorno of Let Me Start By Saying?

Anna, Kim Forde, Catharine Wilder, owner of Kidville in Westfield, NJ, Kim Bongiorno, Ellen, Erin

Erin: Yeah, we’re not gonna lie, that was pretty fabulous. Those ladies rocked the house with their readings. My abs totally got a work-out from laughing so hard.

Ellen: Was the best part having people line up for little ol’ US to sign their books?

Photo NOT staged. There are totally people on the side of the table. Really.

Photo NOT staged. There are totally people on the other side of the table. Really.

Erin: That was more than a little gratifying. Usually I’m reading to my cats or my kids. Very different atmosphere.

Ellen: Was the best part talking with the phenomenal ladies who came out to see us and share some laughs?

Erin: That definitely ranks up there. In the midst of a jam-packed fall schedule full of fun for our kids but not-so-much fun for the moms, this lively, lovely Girls Night Out was a bright spot.

Ellen: So basically they could all be labeled “The Best”. But we do have one UNEXPECTED “Bestest Best”:

We were made to feel like World Travelers!

Erin: People were so nice, and they wanted to know all about us.

Ellen: But we couldn’t believe their amazement when we told them where we were from.

Erin: You would think we had journeyed from a land far, far away. . . like the Midwest. They peppered us with questions.

“Did you take the train?”

“What TIME did you have to leave to make it here?”

“You’ve come so far. Are you making this into a long weekend?”

Ellen: We can understand the responses because we traveled from . . . wait for it . . . Maryland to New Jersey. Now granted, maybe our journey was made to feel like so much more because of the way Erin describes where we live . . .

“We’re in the eastern part of Maryland. You know, tucked into the northern corner. So if the Chesapeake Bay is here, we’re here.” All the while her hands are pinwheeling and she is pointing to the palm of her hand like it’s a map.

Incidentally, she performs the same hand motions no matter what the directions are, so take that with a grain of salt.

Ellen: About the time Erin starts contorting her hand into a topographical map of our region, I jump in to say, “We’re the first exit off of 95 in Maryland on your way south.”

Erin: I do have to admit understanding starts to dawn in their eyes when you say that, but the fact of the matter is, it took us 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there.

Ellen: Hardly a safari, but we began to comprehend their mentality once we started talking to the folks a little more.

Erin: One sweet lady shared that even though her town, Fabulous, NJ, abuts right up against Just-As-Fab, NJ . . .

Ellen: Think stone’s throw, spitting distance, over yonder . . .

Erin: Her neighbor in Fabulous had not ventured into Just-As-Fab for months. Just couldn’t be bothered to make the trip.

Ellen: The “trip” was down the street. Now it all made sense.

Erin: Maybe Northerners think we don’t travel. What they don’t understand is that Ellen and I are about 30 minutes from EACH OTHER.

Ellen: We are a rural community. We have to travel to get anywhere except Walmart. I may live next to a corn field and a horse farm, but dang it, I can get a jumbo can of nacho cheese and a bike pump in less than 15 minutes.

Erin: But we do have to keep it real and admit that the 2 hours and 20 minutes we were so blasé about did turn around and bite us in the butt the next morning. See, we spent the night, BUT just so we could have some post-book signing fun.

Ellen: Well, really it was just your arse that got nipped because I didn’t have to go to work at noon.

Erin: I was really feeling pretty groovy about it all too until I started to do some mental calculations based on our trusty Garmin’s feedback. Ellen had been reassuring me the whole trip that it was wrong because she had entered her home address and not the school address as our final destination.

Ellen: Oh, but when we stopped for your vat of Diet Coke and we entered the SCHOOL’s address. . .

Yep. At 11:30, we really grasped that this was our actual destination time and was not going to change. Gulp.

Erin: At this moment, sheer panic set in. Nothing says “cool under pressure” like screaming to your pilot to “Floor it!” on the interstate. Perhaps if we hadn’t lingered over muffins and our NJ host’s adorable offspring, we would have given ourselves the time cushion we truly needed.

Ellen: But what would’ve been the excitement in that because who doesn’t love a good adrenaline rush? Helps the carbs to sit like a lump in your stomach. But you know what? Regret is for suckers!

Erin: Exactly! We were now not just Erin and Ellen, Sensible Moms Extraordinaire. We were Ellen and Erin, intrepid travelers on our own amazing race.

Ellen: You are fully aware of the irony of the words “sensible” and “extraordinaire” in that last statement, right?

Ellen is definitely the girl you want driving your getaway car. She would probably be great helping to hide that body too. Just sayin’.

Erin: Well, we’re not changing our name now. We did pull into the parking lot of the school with a solid ten minutes to spare and no traffic violations. So I popped a couple of Sour Patch Kids in my mouth, grabbed the rest of the world’s largest travel soda, and set off to light some young minds on fire ’cause that’s how I roll.